In Search For Life
by BrightlyShining
Summary: After a month in Paris Emily returns to DC, unable to begin a new life. The team struggles to move on but dealing with her being alive becomes a hard challenge though. And with Emily Doyle returns, too - playing a game as unfair as never before.
1. Chapter 1

First of all: The summery of this story is aweful, I know. I promise (or at least I hope) that the story will be better than the summery.

I know that there already was an episode where each team member talks about the loss of Emily. I started writing this directly after watching "Lauren" so I already had a few members talking and didn't really want to change this.

I am not sure if the rating M will be justified. However - I finished planning the main plot of this story and so far it's going to contain mentions of suicide, self-harm, (psychological and physical) torture and child abuse! I won't describe those in detail or anything but those topics will appear several times. I'm not that good in writing cruel stuff so reading this will most likely not be hard or anything. But you have been worned anyway.

I'm not a huge fan of pairings in TV and uncertain how I feel about them in fanfiction. However, we'll see what is to come. I'd be thankful for any suggestions.

Do I really need the **disclaimer**? If I would own Criminal Minds I would treat cast and fandom better than CBS does (TG and SM still don't have contracts for S7!)

I still don't know how many chapters this story will contain. Probably quite a few ones (means 20 or more). Making things short doesn't belong to my talents.

Also, you find me begging for someone to beta-read this**!** I'm trying my best concerning spelling and grammar but I am glad for every bit of help I get. Plus my spellcheck left me all alone. I don't know what I did. I changed it to english and now it underlines every single word in every language I tried. Technically qualified me. -.-

**Improvement suggestions, Compliments and Worship** (or just a short feedback) are very, very welcome. Please! Just tell me what you think (I won't take it personal. Except if you're assaulting me then I'll seek retaliation).

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><p><em>Is it tossed by the waves, but does not sink.<em> _- _Motto of the City of Paris

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><p><em>You know, doc, we kinda had a bad start. She barely knew me but she was concerned about the... the trouble I had at this time. And because of that very reason I wasn't exactly nice or respectful or appropriately polite or whatnot, even though she was. We became friends. Just happened. Sure you always get to know your teammates but I know she was a true friend because she was protecting me when the two of us were held hostage by the leader of a liberalist religious cult. Of course it was strategically smart but I know that she didn't do this because of this. She was a good friend. That's it.<em>

_So... I believe we had a good end. Actually - no, of course not, it obviously was terrible. That's why I decided to come back here. But you know what I mean, don't you?_

_The endogenous opioid peptide Endorphin, the neuropeptide Oxytocin and the neurotransmitters Dopamin and Serotonin are what makes us, put simply, happy and interpersonal relationships are building an important part of what makes our bodies produce those substances. The thing is... I never knew what an impact only one person can have on the total amount of personal happiness. There are many people I am together with every day and of whom I'd say make me happy. But then how come the loss of one can... completely overshadow the presence of many?_

_You see - each of my friends and colleagues are part of how happy or unhappy I am. Sure there are other factors, too but the team is what makes me feel better or worse. So losing one should be a decrease of contentment but not a complete elemination. It's not logical. I can't understand this and I think this is the first time ever that I struggel to understand something. Truth to be told it scares me more than the previous situation did. I just don't know what to do and was sorta hoping that you could tell me whether this feeling will ever... come to a close._

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><p>Jeanne L'Aigrette. Born June 23, 1970 to Martha Jenkyns and Stuart Hollow in Albany, NY. Three months after Jeanne's birth Martha and Stuart married and only five years later they went through divorce. Another three years passed until Martha remarried to Pascal L'Aigrette, a native frenchman who lived and worked since 1965 as a manager of a company in New York City that had specialized on importing red wine from France. But due to some tragic developments and the fact that one of his senior executives betrayed the whole company he had to give up this business and moved back to his native Paris - together with Martha and Jeanne. Meanwhile Stuart married a former prostitute in Las Vegas, somehow got into the drug scene and ended up being sentenced to ten years of imprisonment after dealing with pot. Pascal adopted Jeanne as his daughter, in 1988 she finished school in Paris and went back to the States for attending University there. After successfully earning degrees in international private law and communication science she went to work in Italy, the Netherlands and Great Britain for a short while before moving to Rennes. But Rennes turned out to not be half as nice as Paris was so she moved again - to the city that truly became her home.<p>

_This is me. This must be me._

Emily sighted, gloomily staring onto the lightbrown, foamy surface of her Café au Lait. A month had passed since she had sat in this very corner of a small, sweet Café close to Notre-Dame the first time, commiting her new identity to memory, trying to believe that she would be able to spend the rest of her life being this person. But by now she was sick of fantastic cafés, fantastic monuments and fantastic cathedrals. In her old, her _real_ life she had loved Paris like no other city. But being in the skin of Jeanne L'Aigrette she hated speaking french, hated having more than enough money and hated sleeping in and waking up, seeing the Eiffel Tower. Heck, she'd rather be herself again and in danger of getting killed by Ian Doyle than spending the rest of her life in this beautiful city as a person she could never be.

A waiter passed by her table and she took the chance to get out of here. Maybe a few days in Vitré or at the Côte d'Azur would help her adjusting to the new life with her new self or at least revive the affection she used to feel for this country. And even though she didn't really do anything but studying plenty of details concerning Jeanne L'Aigrette she deserved a few days of holliday. The last months had been more than difficult and even though she survived them she felt that she had been destroyed. Killing her or forcing her to escape from life... - Emily seriously began to question what the worse option was.

"Excusez-moi, je veux payer."

"Oui, madame. Un moment, s'il vous plaît. Un Café au Lait et un morceau de gâteau aux amandes... cela fait sept euros et cinquante centimes."

She gave him a ten Euro bill and, because she felt guilty for having the money without doing anything for it, set the change to be his tip. When she left the Café it was already dark outside. She hadn't noticed how long she had been in there. Time became irrelevant by now. She felt like a dead person and death was famously etarnal. _Life_, as everyone else would call it, had nothing to offer to her. Her friends were far away and though she was dead and so did her family. Only one person knew the truth but JJ she couldn't contact. The danger of Doyle noticing was too high. Personally, Emily wasn't afraid any longer of taking that risk. He could come and fight with her. She'd appreciate the distraction. But JJ would be in danger, too. Emily knew Doyle would move heaven and earth to get her and hurting and killing innocent people wouldn't be an obstacle to him. All she could do was to endure her current situation, not even having something to hope for.

She slowly went to the next Métro station, with sagging shoulders and a heart that seemed to become heavier every day. Back at her appartment she grabbed her sports bag to spend some time at a gym that was close by. She still liked to work out but it wasn't the same. Back in the days she had done it for a purpose. She had saved other people's lifes and caught some bad guys. She had had to fight, to sustain high pressure, to mentally and physically give her best and to dedicate herlsef just as the rest of the team did to achieve a shared aim. And she desperately missed it. She was carving out a comfortable, selfless, lonely, useless existence.

Only a quarter of an hour after she had been at her appartment Emily found herself entering the main room of the gym. She went over to one of the treadmills to start off by running a couple of miles - her favourite thing to do by now. It didn't take a profiler to know why this was what she prefered.

"Jeanne, hi!", she heared a bell-high voice calling out from behind her. She turned around and concentrated on building up a smile on her lips. Marry Jane Parker was american and this was the sole reason for why Emily liked meeting her. Speaking english with a person who had no trouble to understand what she said and not an accent that was strong enough to make her native language sound like some opaque variation of whatever made her feel a little like being herself. By any other account Marry wasn't pleasant company. She wasn't smart, funny or even nice but pesky, rude and the fulfilment of every cliché concerning female bleached blonde new-rich americans.

"Oh, hey Marry", she replied, "been a couple of days since I last saw you. Where have you been?"

"Oh yeah?", she asked and showed the bewitching, white smile she always showed while knitting her brows a little, "oh yeah, you're right. I've been kinda busy this week. Do you know whom I met the other day? You won't _believe_ it. Okay, I just have to tell you, it was like so exciting!"

The two of them started their treadmills and Emily began to run. Marry's voice conglomerated with the other ambient noises as the sound of her breathing and her heartbeat seemed to become louder and louder. She accelerated, coming close to the point where it would be only her and the running. She would start to forget where she was and whom she was supposed to be. She would forget that the person closest to a friend was talking about how she met her High School sweetheart and how they went to a party and had sex afterwards. She would forget about everything she had left behind.

And maybe, if she ran fast and long enough, she would open her eyes some day and be at a place where she really belonged...


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Thanks a lot for the review I got & to everyone who put this story on Alter! I think those are already more than for my NCIS fanfiction "When War Blinded". I sais I don't make promises but I'm confident that this storyis going to better better than the NCIS one. But well, that's not that hard.

The **Disclaimer** stays the same. But if you happen to find the rights in Criminal Minds lying around somewhere don't hesitate to send me a personal message, ask for my address & send them to me!

Btw, I've been learning french for about six years but I'm still basically unable to speak or write it w/o making one mistake after another. However, in the last chapter Emily has to pay 7.50€ for her Café au lait and a piece of Almond Cake. I've been to Paris only once and only for about two hours (after spending ten days with a breton family) but everything was freakin' expensive. Just in case anyone needs explanation...

Oh, and I said in the firs chapter that only JJ knows what happened with Emily. I just don't think she told Hotch, it wouldn't really fit with the last quote of the episode.

So here you get the second chapter! Please **R & R**! I'd love to hear how you think about this story...

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><p><em>I miss her. I miss her very much. I know people say <em>misery loves company_ and I used to believe this is true. I mean... it almost would have been. We could have saved her, right? If she would have told us. But she didn't because she felt she needed to protect us and to iron everything out by herself but if she would have we could have protected her. And she would not have felt that alone._

_But right now... I know that we all are bearing misery to the best of our ability. But we all share it and it doesn't make it any better. We can't console each other. Or at least I can't... each of us has a special place and I'm the colorful one. The happy one. And I told her to stay alive and that we're coming to help her. And we did find her but it was too late and I know that since I'm with the FBI and working on all this aweful stuff I should have known better but I really wasn't prepared for this to happen. Things never take that end! We're torn apart. We're losing each other. We're hurt and helpless and desperate. We're scared to death and we're close to death... but we _don't die. _We save each other at all costs!_

_I know I was silly believing this. We went through too much. But right now we're stuck in grief and I can't find a way out of it. I can't accept she's just gone and that this shitty bastard is still out there and maybe even going after Declan. But instead of doing everything to catch him we're working on new cases and that's important, I know and I don't want to kill people by doing nothing but searching for him, but it feels like I'm moving on at the surface while I know that I can't really do and life is passing by while I'm... watching. I said her that if she's at some very dark place we're looking for her and now she's gone and that leaves me staying behind at that place. And I can't seem to find my way out again._

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><p>Emily woke up by her own scream, soaked with sweat, sitting up straight in bed. As she turned left to turn the bedside lamp on she noticed that her hands were shaking. A quick glance at her alarm clock told her it was only 3am. Two hours of sleep.<p>

"Dang it", she moaned and took a few deap breaths, trying to calm herself down. Nightmares weren't new to her but they began to turn worse every night. At first it had only been Doyle and her, her time at Interpol mixed with the most recent past. But then her friends started to appear there, too. She had lived long enough know wwith Doyle to hat he was capable of. In her nightmares she saw him tormenting her friends and revolting details of what he might do to them appeared in her mind's eye. Sometimes he would stay out of her dreams and she would only stare at those she had left behind but loved more than ever. They never talked to her and whenever she tried to say something she would be mute and not a single word would leave her lips.

But tonight it had been Doyle murdering Garcia; she in a pretty flower-patterned dress and large creole earrings, him being as cruel and inhumane as conceivable. Emily shivered as she reminded herself that the woman's screams she remembered were not more than an imagination of her's. Nothing aweful had happened. They were fine. And somehow Emily would turn out okay, too.

She got up, even though she was still tired. She knew she wouldn't be able to sleep again and if she did the dreams would worsen. This was an experience she already made a couple of times and she wasn't looking forward to make another one of this kind. So she got up, got rid of her soaked clothings and went into the shower. The hot water felt good and comforting and released some of the builded up tension in muscles and mind.

When she was done and left the shower again she dashed away the condensed water from the steamed-up mirror and looked at her reflection for a while. This was a habit she had established somewhen during the last four weeks - staring, sometimes as if she had been hypnotized, at the only person she had left and whom she was afraid to forget.

_Who am I supposed to be? How much of me is left? _

Emily gently touched the clover-shaped scarring at her chest where he had burned her. The singe as well as the wood slat's penetration into her abdomen and the bruises and cuts she had recieved had healed up fine and none had caused permanent damage. Yet she saw the clover whenever she looked into the mirror after taking a shower or while she changed her clothes and it made her feel labelled by Doyle. She would never ever get rid of him. She carried him on her skin. No matter what her name was and where she went with it - he was with her. He would follow her everywhere and in the end he would even follow her to the grave.

She put on some gym clothes and took the Métro 2 to get to Parc Monceau for going for a jog there.

She had found several places in Paris where she felt reasonably good. Her appartment was small and she had a wonderful view over the city but, as everything else, it was too impersonal for her to feel comfortable or even home. No photos. No memories. She attempted to read a couple of books but found that reading storries with happy endings made her sad and those that didn't turn out well made her even sadder. Watching movies was fine but made her feel mindless after half a day. Being somewhere in the city she felt better. She didn't need to hide because pretty much everyone was anonymous and nobody interested in each other. As long as she didn't hang a sign saying _Hey Doyle, it's Emily - why don't you try to get me?_ round her neck she had nothing to worry about.

Parc Morceau was deserted at that time of the day but being around nobody was as good as being around a million people. Emily started off slowly, trying to overcome tiredness by exertion and increased her speed bit by bit. It was a beautiful place but Emily couldn't help wondering how safe it was being out here in the middle of the night. Central Park was nice, too but being there all alone wasn't something to recommend. She was pretty sure she would be able to defend herself against pretty much everything but if she would get into a fight the police would take notice of her. But Jeanne L'Aigrette wasn't old enough to make contact with the officials. JJ had gotten her the new ID fairly quickly and Emily wasn't sure in what kind of situation it would sustain. She needed to be careful. And yet she couldn't deny that a part of her wished for someone to attack her, for someone to take notice of her existance.

She quickened her paces until she made rather leaps than steps. Her breathing accelerated and she was pumped out soon after. The lack of sleep made itself felt but she kept running. Tears started to roll down her cheeks and when she began to sob Emily finally had to stop. She tripped over her own feet as she slowed down and fell on the soft grass next to the path, breathing heavily, wishing to not breath at all. She knew she just reached and crossed her breaking point.

Emily lay flat at her back as she stared into the sky, knowing that the sky in DC looked different from her's. About an hour had passed since she had woken up and it was about 10pm at the north american East Coast. She tried to wipe away her tears but new ones came too soon. She gave up on trying to gulp back the sobs and just let them shake her body.

"Look at me now, Doyle", she cried, painfully knowing that there wasn't anyone to hear her, "this is what you wanted, right? I am a dead person. Why didn't you kill me right away? Why did you fail?"

It was more than she could take and Emily hated herself for being that weak. Breaking was not an option. She needed to stay strong. Strength was the only self she had left. What would her friends say if they saw her like that - curled up in a ball, being in all tears, wallowing in self-pity? They would laugh down, being ashamed to even know her name!

"Come on", she told herself as she got up again, "reprends-toi, je ne suis pas un bébé. Get ahold of yourself, dastard!"

She streched and walked back to the Métro station, not knowing how to go on. They would not laugh at her and for a moment she hated knowing such good people. If the world were evil life would be easier.

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><p>Reprends-toi, je ne suius pas un bébé - Calm Yourself! I am not a baby.<p>

& something I just need to give the deep ten: Bin Laden is dead! Ain't that cool? I wake up to the 6am radio news and heared it yesterday. I think that Obama informed the people very well about the current situatiuon and am glad he pointed out that the US aren't in a war with Islam. Some seem to forget about this but it's important to remark! But still I can't help wondering how Bin Laden felt that day. Did he knew he was about to die? Was he scared? What did he think?


	3. Chapter 3

Okay, so here's the thing. This story-traffic parts confirms that some people are reading this story. So now I'm... well, not begging but.. okay, yes. I'm beseeching you for reviews. I only have one. And it consits of two words. It's nice but I want to jam on it so... come _on_!

However, this chapter is really short. I know & the next one won't be that long either but it's going to be significant. Also, the next chapter will contain a reason for this story's rating. Even though it's not that bad.

**Disclaimer** stays the same. Another thing that stays? In two weeks there'll be the season final and Thomas Gibson has still NO contract! O_o

Do I need to repeat **R&R**? Appearently: Yes. So... enjoy! ;D

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><p><em>I didn't want her at first. Gideon and I both rejecter her. But due to some misunderstanding she got informed that she had been accepted to join the BAU. Well, later it turned out that Strauss placed her there to set my career an end but Emily didn't do this. She deserved getting a chance at the BAU and I never regretted having her at my team. She was a great profiler. And even though she didn't seem to have trusted us... I know she did and I know that she did what she did to not put us in danger. She was a good person. That I had the chance to know her is something to be proud of.<em>

_JJ once told me that one day I'll remember Haley and be happy and I hope that the same thing will work for all of us concerning Emily. It's a tragedy that happened and so far she is its hero. But it has no acceptable end yet. So we have to catch Doyle. Kill him, probably. And then... maybe then we can be happy again. Can't we?_

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><p>"Jeanne, sweetie pie, is anything wrong with you? Do you feel sick? 'Cause you look aweful!"<p>

"Thanks, Marry", Emily mumbled, more to herself than to the blonde, "that's just what I needed."

The had met in the gym and decided to go sit in a Café after exercising. Actually it had been Marry's idea and even though Emily doubted that having a soda right after workout made sense she had happily agreed. She needed the contact. Being all by herself the entire time wouldn't help making her feel better. So there they were and Emily resignedly had to face that Marry wasn't the way to happiness.

"Sorry, I didn't listen. You said something?", that very asked with a giggle.

"I said I'm being alright", Emily said in a louder voice, "I only had a bad night."

"I know what you mean, trust me", Marry nodded, "remember how I told you 'bout Jack?"

"Your High School boyfriend?"

"Yap. The one I met Monday and with whom I had the fantastic sex in his Lamborgini. Guess what? We went on a second date yesterday night! Then I went to his house with him and we did it in the hot tub for like an hour or so and in the morning right upon the cooking island in his kitchen! I'm just glad he has an induction cooker - would have been way _too _hot on the ceran stove, hihi. He's got a hot tub, ain't that amazing? But well, what can I say... a lady never tells."

Emily nodded and bit her lip instead of remarking the obvious. Most likely Marry wouldn't even feel offended if Emily told her how talkative she though she was. But even though it was impossible that people like Marry and Emily could ever be friends the young woman was the person she was closest to and one avoids hurting the feelings of those.

"So glad for you! How long have the two of you been together in High School?", Emily faked interest.

"Oh, not that long. He invited me to go to Prom with him in senior year and we split up after graduation. He went to college somewhere in Louisiana, I went to a college that was close to home."

Marry took a drink of the Iced Tea standing in front of her, pulled a strang of hair behind her right ear and smiled the way she always did. Emily was seriously surprized to hear that Marry was somehow educated. She had already been shocked to see her driving a car.

"You have a degree?"

"Yeah, a BA. Actually."

"What in?"

"Oh, communication science. But I'm just glad I don't need to use it. It was so hard!"

Now Emily was somewhere between laughing and crying. She missed being smart and joking with people who actually understood what they were laughing about. And out of every american who probably lived in Paris she had to find the one woman who had nothing in common with her - but way too much with the person she officially was. It was ridiculous.

"Are you kidding?", she said, laughing and drinking from a glass of Coke, "I studied the same thing. So glad I have enough to keep me comfortable. I did work for quite some years but when it started to bore me I was like - hey, life's too short, let's have some fun! You know?"

"You're so right! Party, friends and fun - what else shoud life be good for? I don't want to die and realize the only thing I did was to work my finger's to the bone. I mean - I've got the dough, so why not use it? I have a woman from Morocco being my housekeeper so her and her family are all profiting from me enjoying life. I pay her pretty well for the only thing she has to do is keeping the condo clean."

Emily sighted as she remembered how great coming home late, being exhausted enough to fall asleep fully clothed as soon as she sat down at the couch after a busy day had felt. She closed her eyes and a faint smile appeared on her lips. Most times it had felt so good being in the plane after catching another killer and maybe even saving a victim. Not only had there been the satisfaction of doing something good - they had done their best to get the best result they could. And even though it had included recieving some scars more than once she had loved to have job that was back-breaking in many ways and suddenly felt disgusted by Marry, who seemed to feel nothing but scorn for those who _did _something and who, even though their bank account would always be smaller than her's, had more success in the actual life.

"Are you sure you're okay?", Marry asked and Emily realized that she'd been staring into thin air for almost a minute. She sighted and took another drink of Coke.

"Yes, I'm alright. It's just... I've never been homesick before. I always thought Paris was my home but ever since I returned from Rennes I'm not so sure about this. I lived at so many places that I can't really tell where I belong. But I'm sure it's just a temporary blues. Happes sometimes."

Living with a monther who was an ambassador Emily knew pretty well what she was talking about but yet her words were a lie. There had been times of having no home, no safe haven and sometimes not even a person to trustfully turn to.

But she had found all of this.

She had a family.

She knew where her home was.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **New Chapter. Thanks for the seconds review & thanks tpo everyone who put this story on Altert (or on the list of favourite's).

I've got a question that is rather important: **Can I still change the rating of this story?** Because I came to find that M isn't deserved. There are storys that contain worse situations than the ones I'm going to write (later on, not yet) and they are rated with T so I want to rate my story T, too. Otherwise I'll simply go with some more blood and a whole bunch of "bad words" (I just don't get used to why people are making such a big deal from cussing. I could say, and use, "asshole" when I was two years old. Who cares? There are worse things to worry about). ;)

Anyways. This story will contain itty bitty parts of Seaver and since we don't know that much about her they might turn our to be OC as the show goes on.

**R&R** (and please, don't ignore the second R all the time!) I'm hoping for some feedback here, so tell me what you think!

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><p><em>I never really got to know her. Not in that a short time. But I don't believe knowing her is a necessary requirement to miss her. You see - I don't care what kind of music she liked, was her favourite movie was or which ice cream flavour she prefered. I know her mother is somehow involved into politics but that's pretty much everything I know. She was my training supervisor. But looking at what she did I miss her a lot and not being able to know her is a pity. She risked so much to save this boy from what would have been a terrible destiny and it is desperately sad that a woman had to die for simply doing the right thing, which took a lot of bravery.<em>

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><p>Her throat was burning, her head and neck thobbing. A dull pain seemed to have spread through her entire body. She was freezing. And most of all - she was blind, surrounded by pitch-black darkness.<p>

Emily moaned as she tried to remember what had happened. Where was she? Was she okay or seriously injured? Did something hit her head? She winced at the thought of Doyle. Did he found her? How could this had happen? And the team - were they alright? Did they know? Did they live?

Slowly she realized that she wasn't in a completely dark room. Faint but distinctly existing light began to get through to her and Emily recognized the vague outlines of a bathroom. Her vision was blurred and fuzzy but being able to at least see something was already a great relief. The tile floor around her was wet and cold. She sniffed. Nothing. It was most likely clean water... maybe with a hint of Scotch?

"Aah, what on earth went wrong this time?"

Her voice was hoarse and speaking seemed to be unusually intricate and painful. Moving her mouth to say the words felt odd and strangely unfamiliar. Something was definitly wrong. Talking had been her least spot of bother and if words failed her what else would be following?

She carefully raised her right hand to touch the back of her head where most of the pain seemed to originate from. Her fingers met her sticky, damp hair and as she was holding them in front of her eyes she could see they were red. She most likely had a laceration either from being hit with something or falling onto the ground. Maybe she had a concussion as well.

And then she suddenly knew where she was - how could she have missed the obvious? It was her own, small daylight-bathroom. She could see her shower above her. Maybe she slipped, fell and that was it? But then why did she smell Scotch? She eavesdropped for a couple of minutes but couldn't hear anyone else move around in her apartment. She was alone. An accident was indeed the most rational explanation. No Doyle, no fight, no upcoming torture or anything - it was the result of a clumsy, distracted moment that wouldn't cost her much more than a quick trip to the ER to check for any signs of concussion or internal bleeding and the feeling of being extremely hungover. She had had worse.

She already wanted to get up when she saw something was dambling from, as it looked, the ceiling above her. Something colorful, long and soft. She blinked a few times until her vision sharpened. It was her scarf which was knotted to the pole of her shower where the curtain was attached to, too. How weird...

"Ah, dang it!", Emily grunted, inconveniently turned herself into prone position and then crawled on all fours to the next wall, sat down and leaned against it. All those actions didn't require a lot of movement or effort but she felt dizzy and exhausted afterwards. Her head was spinning and she put it in-between her knees, trying to keep her breathing deep and calm until she felt better. Supporting herself against the wall she stood up and took two unsecure steps through the room until she reached the sink, took a glass that surprizinlgy stood on the shelf where she kept her makeup - and balked. To almost one third the glass was filled with Scotch. She tipped the alcohol out into the sink, thoughtfully shaking her head, and would have almost refilled it with tap water before taking notice of the odd, white remains. They looked just the way vitamin pills did when one tried to liquidate them but took too little water. So the sole problem was that this wasn't water and that Emily didn't take vitamin pills.

In fact she barely took any kind of medicine - she had been so scared of getting addicted to painkillers that she stopped taking them as soon as she had been released from hospital, even though she still had been in pain. It had been the right decision. Sometimes she had woken up, feeling a sharp pain where the clover-scar was. But by now this was impossible and evidence for her inability to differentiate between physical and emotional suffering. Only one time, after spending three sleepless nights in a row, she had decided to buy a pack of soporific.

In shock her glimpse scurried through the room, finally catching her scarf. It was ripped, two loose, unevenly ends were hanging down the pile. By now Emily was close to an outgrown panic as a picture of what must had happened began to form in her mind. This couldn't be true, it coudn't!

"My head", she mumbled, touching the wound another time, "my head and my throat. The pills made me tired so that I wouldn't stuggle much when I put the scarf- ...but the scarf ripped. I fell down. Hit my head. Then... my throat. Oh my gosh, my throat!"

Her eyes widened in horror when she finally looked at her reflection. A large bruise encircled her throat, already of a blue black with a few red casts. Tears began to roll down her cheeks as she realized what she had done.

"How low did I get?", she said under her breath, "oh my god, why did I-?"

There was no need to finish the sentence. The answer was obvious. She couldn't remember what exactly brought her to attempt suicide but somehow it had to be Paris. Jeanne L'Aigrette had tried to kill her. Doyle had been close to win another time.

Suddenly Emily tasted bile and gastric acid in her mouth and fell down in front of the toilet bowl, crying while violently emptying her stomach. She had no idea what time it was and when she had taken the soporific but the mere thought of how weak she had become disgusted her enough to throw up. One after another swallow of gastric contents escaped through her moth, only interrupted by sobs that became more and more powerless.

When she had nothing else to throw up she kept kneeing on the floor, breathing but not moving a lot more. Only when the smell became unbearable she decided she had to do something. It was easy.

She had two other options left and their names were Marissa Puga and Stina McCoyle. Former was a wealthy inheritrix who lived in Madrid, the latter owned a condo in Moskau where she led a comfy life after financing a couple of good investments in the real-estate branche. Emily kept them in a lockbox which she kept in a small safe. The combination for the lockbox was 7,18,9,5,14,4,19,8,9,16 and the safe's one simply 6,15,18,20,8,5,13. She never opened any of both those security precautions but had to smile at how corny the combinations were whenever she thought about her IDs.

But neither Marissa nor Stina could save her life. None of them really was an option, none of them able to be a future to Emily. She gave a short shift and burned those two, fake women. And then she decided to kill Jeanne L'Aigrette after using her for only one more time. Because there was only one way for her to survive.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** Sorry this chapter is so short. It's only meant to be the transition. I somehow needed to get Emily back to DC without too much drama (but there will be some personal team-stuff and trouble with Doyle and everything soon) so this will be it. :) Plus I have school and which is inevitably taking time. :/

Thanks to everyone who put this story on alert and/or favourite! & thanks for the reviews I got. I was so happy to read them! And Samuel20: You're right. It's supposed to be a 6. D'oh, I can't even get my own corny code right. I'll change it. I tried yesterday but my internet broke down all the time and then I wasn't in the mood for doing it any longer...

&& I found out how to change the rating so that this story is **now rated T**. It was pretty stupid, I couldn't find where to change it (it turned out to be obvious) but was _that close_ (imagine my fingers being freakin' close to each other) to accidentally changing the main characters to Gideon and Foyet. Way to make no sense! :D

**Disclaimer** stays the same. And so does the current situation of TG & SM's contract negoations. No contract. But hopefully CBS won't make the same stupid mistake two times.

Please, please, please **R&R!** I love reviews if all kind. & enjoy.

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><p><em>Summing up our current situation is pretty easy. We try to deal with it all together because she was a friend of all of us but we fail. Earning money by starting to think the way sociopathic criminals do means that we have to protect our own mind from their's to keep our sanity but by doing so we start to protect it from everyone else, too. It is hard to let anyone know how we feel. From time to time there had been situations where sharing grief turned out to be helpful. But all in all it's a new area for us. By us I'm not specificly talking about the team, more about those who see evil every day, who fight it but enter hell evey time they do and who fight even more to not let it touch the own soul or self.<em>

_During our investigation we learned how strong Doyle had connected to Emily. He had loved her and she betrayed him all the time and even though she didn't knew he went to Camp 22 she was the main reason for his time there. So it's understandable that he's mad and seeked revenge. I admire that she didn't fell in love with him. I've seen undercover investigators who struggled with whom they were after a month or two already, who did stupid things, who almost forgot they were cops. I once interviewed a highly decorated Agent who had worked on shattering a coterie of human traffickers. He ended up getting caught by local law enforcement after he had taken a child from a young forced prostitute whom they had promised to legally place as a housekeeper in an canadian home. He sold that child, a little girl, to a man who was an undercover investigator from vice squad and who arrested him._

_This Agent couldn't handle what he did. And Emily slept with Doyle and entered his life in a way she probably never did again ever after. I don't know about any kind of long-time relationship she had. I think that being able to insolate herself that strong must have made her very lonely and maybe that's the reason why she couldn't tell us. Maybe she never realized that she didn't had to be alone. That she could trust us in every possible way._

_I don't know what else there is to say. Everyone misses her by oneself and so do I._

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><p>"Bonjour madame. Enlevez vos chaussures et vos manteau et posez-les et vos bagages à main dans le récipient, s'il vous plaît. Si vous avez un ordinateur portable vous devez poser l'appareil en séparé de vos bagages. Assurez-vous que vous n'avez pas objets metallique sur soi et allez au travers du détecteur."<p>

Emily nodded and did as she was told, hoping that the woman wouldn't asked her to remove the thin, white but opaque scarf she weared. She had tried to cover the strangulation marks with makeup but concealer cream and powder made the evidence of failure olny look a little paler. So Emily had tried to cover them as good as possible by putting on a turtleneck jersey and a scarf that, hopefully, wouldn't raise suspicion that she tried to hide anything under it. Security people were amazingly stubborn when it came to finding out what exactly one wasn't willing to reveal to them and Emily didn't feel in the mood of explaining anything.

But she triggered no alarm when she went though the detectors and the woman handed Emily her items back as soon as they passed the seperate scan.

"Bon Voyage, madame."

"Merci beaucoup. Bonne soirée."

Thirty minutes later the plane took off and Emily, getting a last glimpse of the city she learned to hate, sweared to herself that she would rather die than return. Her luggage consisted of the clothes she weared, a light coat and a small suitcase. She would destroy the fake ID of Jeanne L'Aigrette as soon as she had passed the security in DC. Emily didn't knew what to do then. Maybe she could stop by at JJ's?

"Excuse me, are you feeling alright?"

The woman sitting next her must have been in her 70s already. She gave Emily a mild, worried smile and offered her a vomit bad. Tiny wrinkles emerged around her eyes.

"Thank you, but I'm fine", Emily declined, "I'm only... I don't really know. Scared, maybe."

"Aviophibia?", the woman asked, sympathetically nodding and Emily decided to take that chance.

"Just a little nervous. But I'm gonna be okay. It's not that a long flight."

"So you won't need this?" She fluttered with the bag again but suddenly Emily smiled bright and honestly. She shook her head.

"Thanks, but I won't need this. You know - I feel like I'm going home. Nothing's going to happen now."

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><p>He sat in the middle of a sandbox, close to a high gree fence where the road began and played with a truck his mother got him the other day, immitating engine noises and spraying a thin drizzle of saliva from his lips. He couldn't remember why she had but apprechiated her generosity very much. The plain action of buying a bright blue toy truck that was worth five dollars wasn't such a big deal. But after all it certainly was more than a truck. He smiled as he remembered the innermost love his mother had showed him and sighted as he wished she could spend the day with him and the new toy. He didn't like kindergarden very much. He had to fight with other children to get the best toys and even this made playing be less fun. And since they weren't allowed to fight they had been given the choice of either getting in trouble or being bored. He hated being there.<p>

But today fighting had not been necessary. An older boy, who was jealous of the new truck, had tried to take it from him but he wasn't allowed to do that. There was a law against it and he had told him he would go to jail for that. Maybe he would even get a shot there just that the people there wouldn't give him candy afterwards and it would be even more scary than getting one at the doctor's office.

The boy smiled at the image of the other boy becoming pale when he had been told he would ruin his whole life by taking the truck. Even though both of them weren't sure why someone at prison would get a shot. Hurting people -even if they were bad guys- was forbidden, too and none of them really believed the whole the-huge-needle-will-keep-you-healthy story they had been told so many times anyway.

He was too young to understand that the "shot" some prisoners were given was not meant to keep them healthy and that those who injected it were allowed to hurt others. He was too young to understand death and furthermore he was too young to understand the mystery of good and evil.

Little did he know that the nicely smiling man who stood at the fence and whom he waved at before turning around to search for some other kinds to play 'pretend' with could easily have been the answer to the every question of human abyss.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: **

Actually this chapter consits of three parts but since the first one os only one line long I guess it's more two than three. However, the second/ the first long one isn't very important but the latter one is.

**Warning:** The part I just mentioned will contain some torture. It's slightly graphic and not _awefully_ bad but if you don't like reading that skip it. I'll summ up what that part is about in the end of this chapter.

Thanks again to everyone who wrote a review or aded this to alerts or favourites. Even though there aren't many reviews I love checking my emials the day after updating the story. It's awesome to get informed about all the new development. I love reading those mails (especially because the only other mails I get are spams for weird stuff... _penis enhancement_, seriously?). ;)

I would be thankful for every new review though. Especially criticism would be nice as long as it is appropriate. So: **Read & Reviwe, please!**

plus I am thinking about some sort of a Morgan/ Eily paring, even though JJ and Emily are going to be the most important characters in this story. I never really wrote a pairing (I don't even believe that true love excists) but I would like to try... probably.

Sad thing I still **do not own Criminal Minds**. The good thing is that SM got a contract for season 7 by now. But what's going on with CBS and TG is still not sure...

& again something I simply need to give the deep ten: Tomorrow (or since it's 2:42am in Germany right now today) an iranian woman who's eyes were corroded by a man will be -due to sharia and some extra court desicions- allowed to do the same thing to the man who did this to her. I just don't think it's right. I'm morally weak and believe in things like death penalty but making that man blind even though he did something exactly as cruel... it's just so bad. And it seems to be just wrong to me that the judical system allows personal vengeance... any other thoughts about this? (my mother told me she heared it on the radio yesterday and I just can't stop thinking about it).

I hope you'll like this chapter. Finally something's happening!

**R&R R&R R&R!**

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><p><em>She is dead. I miss her. It makes me sad. What else is there to say?<em>

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><p>The blanket underneath that she curled up was too thin to keep her warm and was made from a material that felt rather synthetical than cuddly. She didn't trust the whole Motel - right after checking in she had left to a store and bought a couple of hygienic supplies to clean up the bathroom before taking a long awaited shower. Every single bit of the room disgusted her and she would have to find some other place to have breakfast the next day - she had seen a few leftovers from supper and hightly doubted that eating at this crappy place was something she could survive.<p>

She had taken a flight from Paris very early in the morning. The flight to DC usually took about seven or so houres but due to difficulties with the techniques they had to have a stopover in Detroit. She had arrived home 11am EST. Tired, knocked up, not knowing what to do next - but as happy as she hadn't been since knowing Garcia would make it through being shot, Reid survived the explosion of Cyrus' church, Hotch and Jack both were shattered but somewhat okay after Foyet had killed Haley...

The moments of true happiness were wedded to her friends. And even though they didn't know she was alive, even though they missed her but grievingly started to move on Emily felt she was with them already and this feeling closed a huge gap inside of her.

Deciding where to stay had taken her almost two more hours. Doyle had to notice she was back. Safest place to stay at was the BAU but she couldn't show up there. Not yet. Not just like that.

Lying in the bed, eyes tightly shut Emily eventually fell to sleep. Sleep was supposed to be more peaceful than her's though. It wasn't any of her friends this time. It wasn't Doyle either. In fact she was the only one. Standing in the middle of nothing. Floating in the darkness. At first afraid that something might be hiding in there it didn't take much time until she realized that there wasn't anything in there. She stood there all alone. And then the rememberance of a colorful scarf began to tightly wrap itself around her...

She woke up gasping, her cloathes soaked as almost every night. She glanced at her wristwatch and realized it wasn't night. She couldn't remember what time it had been when she fell asleep but now it was almost 10am. Almost one day home...

_And it's not as much my home as I was expecting._

_...oh come on, don't blow smoke. You knew it's not _that_ easy. And you're fine, so stop complaining!_

After taking a shower Emily packed her things to find herself another place to stay at. There were plenty other Motel's around but she took the next shuttle that would take her straight into town. There she found a cheap hotel, almost as crappy as the first one. A grocery store next door. The detergents she got would have been sufficient to clean the whole building and with the food Emily was positive to make it through the next days, weeks or a month without even leaving the room. Not that she was really hoping that this would be necesarry..

This was how she spent the rest of the week, unable to do anything. A few times she caught herself mumbeling french words and hours went by while she sat in front of the bathroom mirror, observing the strangulation marks that faded way too slow and the clover-scar that seemed to stop hurting as much as she used to imagine. Things went certainly better even though nothing really went on. Emily knew she was standing still. She needed to do something because what she did right now -letting herself be delighted by the joy of leaving Paris behind- would soon have the depression of being home and still all alone to follow. And the results of what would happen then were from a darkish blue that was painful in so many ways.

_Do this now. Come on. How many other choices do you have left?_

This decision wouldn't stay free of negative consequences. Everything could happen. Everything could go to hell in a handbasket.

And yet it wasn't a true decision.

It had never been one.

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><p><em>Some weeks earlier...<em>

"Hello, Lauren."

The man smiled at the woman who was kneeing in front of him. A black, cotton sack was pulled over her head but soaked with blood already. But this hadn't been his work. That's how they had brought her to him even though they assured him it had been necesarry. Only a broken nose that had been inevitable. She had tried to fight them and her injuries had been impossible to avoid. But he was willing to forgive. Paying attention to her face was what he wanted to do last. It would be his dessert. The cream topping to a sweet gormandizing of blood, pain and humiliation. Delicious.

He heared her whimper and cry and a huge smile of satisfication appeared on his face. This was the moment he had been awaiting. Again. Only that this time he wouldn't fail the way he did the last.

"I thought you were dead", he said quiete and soft, but it was impossible to overhear the alice of his voice, "and I would have loved to spit and dance on your grave a little, maybe dig out your body and then have fun with it for a few days until I'll send some pieces of it to your friends. Well, I'm glad you stayed alive. This way I spare pains and postage."

He kicked the woman in the stomach and against her ripcage with all his power, all his anger, all his hate. She screamed and h laughed at her pain. A loud crack left no doubt that he had broken bones, broken this goddamned bitch. Finally she _had_ to realize what she had done to him. She would pay this time. There wouldn't be a way to escape him. Vengeance was his. Nobody would take it from him.

He kicked her a few more times until she gave up screaming. Maybe she hadn't any power left for this. After such a short time she was broken. He found it a little disappointing that this happened so fast. If she had no enegery to scream and no hope left that could be broken it wouldn't be as much fun but still enjoyable. Still the greatest moment of his life.

"I have some good men. My eyes and ears. Seriously, Lauren - I would have expected more from you. Faking death and then being so... available. That's bumbling but I guess the time with the FBI made you a little lazy, didn't it?"

He squated down next to her, passing his knife from his left hand to the rght and back, not sure which one to use it with. He had reached perfection in using any kind of weapon bi-manual. But the right one was more comfortable to use, And since this was supposed to be nothing but fun...

The cold steel of the blade touched the woman's jeans and it took almost no pressure to go through the denim tissue and her skin. She winced and he smiled as her blood began to stream out.

"Please, Sir... let me go! I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not dead. I never was dead. I don't know who you are. Why wouldn anyone believe... just let me go, please. It's not too late to change the end of this yet!"

"Oh please, Lauren, you should know better about what I want. Of course it's not too late but... I simply have no interest in changing anything. This is perfect. Isn't it?"

With only one quick movement he oulled the knife all the way up to her upper leg. Finally a scream escaped her mouth, followed by a mouthfl of vomit that ran down the side of her cheeks, disappearing somewhere in the inside of the sack.

"So... where did we stop?", he whispered and smiled, "oh yes, I remember..."

He started to open up her casual button down shirt by cutting of the buttons one by one.

"Please... please don't! Listen, Sir, you can just walk off, buy a prepaid cell and call an amulance. Dump it, run away, leave the country or do whatever you wanna do... just don't do this, please. I'm begging you-"

"Nah, this is not the time for begging. I believe I gave you a nice peace of artwork, didn't I? And one not-so-elaborate present that mgiht have been a... longer reminder of who I am though. What a shame. Things aren't about beauty any longer. Only abot the pain the inflict. Don't you agree with me?"

"I don't know what you are talking-"

"_Don't you agree with me?_"

"Ehm... yes, of course I do. You are so right with this. People are incapable of appreciating the small beautiy hidden in thigs."

"So how do you like my presents from last time?"

"I _swear_ I don't know you!"

He angrily punched her with his fists and she screamed again.

"Don't you lie to me! Don't you just deny me!"

He ripped open the rest of her shirt and stared at her skin in disbelieve. Almost every inch of her thorax was covered with bruises of all shades. Still the two huge scars had to be visible. He gently touched her skin, hoping to feel the uplift of scar tissue. There was none.

"What the hell?"

Panic threatened to overwhealm him as he pulled down the sack from the woman's head. The resemblence was fascinating and shocking at the same time. Probably deceptive to others but not to him. And for sure unforgivable. He stood up and turned to leave the small basement cell where he kept her.

"Wait! Where're you going? It's not too late, I can only repeat, it's never-"

"Just shut up and safe your breath. You're wrong. You're worthless."

He opened to doop and stepped ut into the corridor. Some would have to pay for this mistake. He would make sure the price was appropriate.

"If I am not the one you want you can get me help! Please, would anyone help me? I don't want to die! I am not worthless, I want to live, please. My daughter has no father. She'll be all alone. Oh, please, please..."

The woman's words became quiet as he left the basement.

Someone would eventually get rid of her.

She was none of his business.

**A/N:**

So just in case you skipped (even though that's not necesarry - worse things happen in fairytales and stuff) here is what happened: A man (Doyle) attempts to torture a woman. He starts off with it but soon realizes that she's not Emily and that the men who abducted her made a mistake. He leaves her and she'll die. This takes place before Emily returns from Paris. So he knows that she's alive and tries to find her but different from what he thought getting her isn't as easy as expected.

**Read & Review! Come _on!_**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:**

Sorry this chapter is so short. I hope you like it though. I was kinda amazed when I had a look on the story traffic statistics. People are actually reading this.

Thanks to blackandblueangel, crazyobsession 101, crazyobsessio01 (are you the same person or is it a coincidence?), miaa29, Samuel20, ChelseaDagger and jjprentiss. Thanks a lot for reviewing!

However, I'm starving for **some more feedback**. Please. Imagine me giving you a sweet, bright smile. Or well... no, that's not such a good idea, I might just scare you away. What about that deal: You **review** and I'll reproeve you from my smile. ;)

The **Disclaimer** stays the same.

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><p><em>I was so afraid she might already be dead. I was happy that she didn't die in my arms but in surgery. I saw people die before. And I had people die in my arms, too. But I wouldn't have kniwn what to do then. I already had no idea. I just told her what I really needed to tell her. I would say it was a pretty good choice.<em>

_She's leaving a great whole in any of us behind. But it's almost scary to see that we are moving on. We don't have a time that is as hard as I had expected. _

_I had nightmares. Still have them. They are quite intense. But they become less. The other night I woke up and felt very well rested. Even on my way here I was listening to the radio. I wasn't anything good really, just some chart music but I suddenly caught myself feeling no sadness at all. _

_That's not how it is supposed to be, is it? _

_Of course things will get easier and we'll adjust to the change but this shouldn't come that early. I don't _want_ to feel better so soon after. I'm losing even more of her that way..._

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><p>She remembered the long cell phone number. She remembered all the numbers. This hadn't been always the case, Reid had probably been the only one who wasn't dependent on the phone dorectory. But when it was clear that she couldn't keep anything that was a straight connection to the FBI she had learned them all by heart. Because giving up everything had been too hard to handle.<p>

Now that she pressed the keys she realized she had been eating her heart out to do this. Her hand were shaking. It was both excitement and doubts. The chances she would regret this later were high.

"This is Special Agent Jareau. Who am I talking to?"

Emily balked for a few seconds, not knowing what to say. She hadn't really thought about what to do. But she couldn't trust on good or bad luck, couldn't take things just the way they'd come. The expected doubts apployed on a dime. After all it would be safer for JJ if Emily would just hang up and dump the phone somewhere. By the end of the day she wouldn't be more than a short interruption, probably a wrong number. An unregognized call from an old life that would soon be forgotten.

"Hello? Who is there?", JJ asked again. Emily swallowed hard as she heared her friend's voice after, as it felt, and endless amount of time. The smarting pain in her throat reminded her once again of what hanging up to leave again would mean. And this couldn't be just it.

"Hey."

It wasn't much more than a whisper that came over her lips. An eerie silence followed. Emiyl heared nothing but a scratching noise in the phone as she waited intently that JJ would respond in any way. She began to doubt her decision to call - or to come back- at all. How irresponsible it all had been. Heck, she hadn't left because she had been afraid of death. That she could take. It had been for her friends that she had decided to leave because they were safer without her. Emily had been a threat to their lifes and now she wasn't even strong enough to protect them for a couple weeks. How lame was that?

"How are you doing?", the telephonee finally responded. Did she hear a hint of worry in the question which she had asked in a tone that seemed to be pointedly calm, almost casual? But Emily hadn't time to wonder about those detail. She had no clue how to answer. If she said she was fine JJ just had to blame her for coming back. If she told her the truth... well, she still had the marks covered with make-up and clothings, even though she wasn't planning on leaving the Hotel until somewhen within the upcoming days. She wouldn't meet anyone face to face and still she was unable to let any sign of her weekness show. She didn't want to commit her failure. She couldn't tell. The shame would be mortal.

"Oh, ehm, I am... I am okay. But I am back. Paris didn't work out-"

"What about the other two?"

"I, ehm... no. I'm sorry. It doesn't work. I just didn't know-"

"No. No!", JJ interrupted, taking the heavy duty of explanation from her friend, at least for a while, "That's fine. I'm just glad you're still alive. I was only... curious. never mind."

"This would certainly not be that case if it hadn't been for you. It felt good to be typing your number again though. Even though I shouldn't... whatever."

"Ehm, Emily... I don't think we should talk about this like that."

"What... what do you mean?"

Emily felt as if an iron burden of desolation would crash down on her. Not for the first but for the worst time. Horrible thoughts flashed through her mind right away.

_She doesn't want to talk to me. _

_She doesn't want me to be back. _

_She doesn't want me to call again._

_She doesn't want me to be in her life!_

"I'm sorry, JJ", she mumbled, "if you feel safer if I stay away-"

"Oh my - Emily, this is not what I was meant", the other one hurried to explain. Of course Emily couldn't see her but she was sure to know the expression on the blond's face. Shattered but as professional as usual. Other's could tell something wasn't right but nobody would know what it was. It had always been that way. Even though one would always find consolation and empathy at her, even though she wouldn't hesitate to show that she felt _something J_J was incredibly good in hiding her exact emotions. Her face never lied but neither told it the truth.

"I only wanted to remark that... regarding your current situation using a cell isn't the safest way to talk. But we're kinda in the middle of a case right now and there is a conference at Henry's kindergarden tonight where the parents organize some kind of group evening... singing and tinkering with the children, having supper all together. Some genius of a single-father came up with the glorious idea of electing me to the chief executive of green elephant group's parents association and for that there're only fifteen members their problems seem yoto be incredibly difficult and important so... you know what? Skip that. I think we should meet. I can come visit u, wherever you are, tomorrow night. I assume you're at a Hotel or anything. Change to some other place and call me again. I'll get away from whatever I might be on and bring the food, you stay safe by all costs. Alright?"

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><p><strong>AN:**

This iranian woman wasn't allowed to blind the man yesterday. However, they simply delayed this process for now and might just set a later date.

But almost ridiculous is that she is almost naturally allowed to blind him but appearenty two eyes of a woman are only worth one male eye. So the tricky part was getting permission to blind both his eyes. This is just so... hm, I wouldn't say _outraging_ since outraging is the lagalization of Sharia. But it's aweful for sure. This whole issue is aweful.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: **

**Disclaimer** stays the same.

I don't know if anyone is still reading this since I'm taking plenty of time to update. I know. & I'm sorry. I've been kinda bussy. Yes, procrestinating sometimes _is_ connected to work. This was one of thoses weeks where it might have been good to not have been planning on doing everything I wanted to do within the past few weeks in only four days. But well - it works out fine! :)

**Please, please, please, please, please, please, pleaseee** give me a **REVIEW** or anything. **PLEAAASE!** I feel like I'm starving (I belive it's due to the lack of reviews... or maybe 'cause I'm running on chewing gum and water right now but even of this is so: **review!** Come on, I know you can do it!)

Things will be getting a little more exciting in the next chapter. Doyle will start with his plan to get to Emily and... yes. I don't know what else is going to happen. But it's going to be something amazing (notice: this is not a promise or contract lol).

So... enjoy! (& **review**.)

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><p>"Look at what we got!", Morgan cheered as he entered the conference room. In each hand he held one grand foamcup.<p>

Finally they had finished the case, caught the perpetrator - they even saved his last victim before he could murder her. It was a little girl. That he had liked. Young girls who just started first grade and had family trouble. He had been their therapist at first and, as soon as they had trusted him, their rapist, tormentor, murderer. Removing the bloody, disturbing pictures had been a great relief. No more photos of decomposed children bodies that were dumped like trash at the side of the road for at least a couple of days.

Ashley entered the room right behind him, carrying a stack of pizza boxes on which five more cups stood. She held it awefully crooked as she pushed the door, which automatically had closed behind Morgan again, open again.

"That a gentleman", Garcia coffed, "letting the new girl carry the burden."

JJ stood up to help Ashley distribute food and drinks to whom ordered them while Morgan gave Garcia a bright smile.

"But guess who's having controle over this extra large raspberry chocolate milkshake with whipping cream and sugar sprinkles? You know the magic words."

"I love you."

"That's not everything."

"You're the one and only love of my life, hot stuff."

"That's what I wanted to hear, baby girl", he smiled and handed her the cup and turned arounsd to Reid then, holding another cup close in frot of the genius' eyes, "and here's your... delicious creation. Rockmelon-Orange with pieces of Brownies and defatted cream, pretty boy. Hm... wouldn't have you associated to be a defatted-drinks-drinker."

"In 2006 about 425,425 people in the United States died from a heart attack. Can't be wrong to pay a little attention on my nutrition." He raised one hand to grab the cup and Morgan mockingly pulled it away, too high for Reid to reach it while sitting down.

"Hey, give it to me! I paid for this!"

The team sat down around the table. It was the first time that all of them agreed on having a case-closed pizza-and-milkshakes night. Sometimes they had celebrated the end of a case before but this night was special. It was their way of healing. They had been to different therapists but they knew each of them saw one. This simple fact was enough to know that none of them was truly capable of handling what had happened. It was a wordless agreement that this way of spending time together was their way of recovery. That some things wouldn't change - they had lost one friend but not each other. It was about sticking together. And it was about moving on, finding their way back to happiness or at least to a little more comfort.

JJ watched them and concentrated on keeping up a smile. Whenever she truly looked at the others the feeling of guilt rose again and seemed to almost cursh her heart. This was all her fault. She had lied to them and that was why they were in grief. She could have protected them from so much suffering. If she had they would be all together now. They would have done their work as usual, would have solved the case and maybe they would be here now, too, eating and joking, spending a good night at a room where they normally solved the most gruesome cases. They would be here with Emily and without all the pain. Each of them had already been through hard times. They had enough wounds that needed healing and scars that were constant reminders of what would never let go of them. And she had made it only worse. She was messing them up. Purposely.

Once again she had to remind herself that she inflicted all this pain of losing a loved one because she needed to protect Emily. And for the first time ever she had reason to hope that things wouldn't be like this for the rest of her life. Maybe they would find a way to truly bring Emily back. Now that she already was in DC, as dangerous as this was, Doyle would probably become active again and maybe they wouldn't come too late this time...

Her phone rang and the fact that she didn't recognize the number was what told her it must be Emily. She most likely had pruchased a prepaid phone that she could dump any time.

"Excuse me for a second."

She uprose from the table and left the room.

"Special Agent Jareau.""Hey JJ. It's me."

She smiled as she heared Emily's voice.

"You found a place to stay?", she asked, "we're done with the case so I've got time to come."

"Yes. Small crappy hostel, next to... ehm, you remember this fantastic restaurant we once visited all together? I'm on the other side of the street, room 2-35. It's the stinky one with the darkish-browm carpet. Can't miss it, just follow your nose."

"I'll be right there. See you."

She went back to the room where they gathered, quickly thinking about how to excuse herself.

"Ehm... I've got to go. This was Henry's babysitter and there's some emergency going on with her mom, after what I undertsood they just took her into surgery so she needs to be there. She offered to call a friend who'd take care of Henry but I'm not so comfortable with this and Will still attends a conference in Norfolk so... yeah. Sorry folks."

"No, that's alright", Garcia quickly replied, "have fun with my lovely godson. And don't forget your shake. We'll take care of your pizza."

"Great", JJ smiled, grabbing the sweet drink, "see you tomorrow then."

* * *

><p>He saw her leaving early but knew there was no reason for that. Not as far as he knew. The boy was being watched all night, that man would be out of town for at least another week, learning about witness protection while he should be home, protecting the most important ones.<p>

He smiled as he thought about how desperate her husband would be if he would come home to realize what had happened. The irony of the situation would very likely be unbearable for him.

Oh, what a delication this was going to be.

How much he was going to enjoy this...

* * *

><p>Emily's description of the hostel she stayed at hadn't been an understatement. JJ screwd up her nose as the disgusting smell of musty carpet, urine, pea stew and a itty bit of disenfectant -that had probably been used more than a decade ago- entered her lungs and seemed to burn them from the inside out. The entrance area was small, walls and ceiling of a dirty yellow, the air heavy with cigarette smoke.<p>

"You want anything?", a grouchy looking old man who stood at the check-in grunted, "because if you don't wanta stay you better get out of here fast, yeah?"

"Ehm... no, I mean-", JJ stammered, "I am... a... friend of mine got a room and I... need to visit... her."

"Her?" His gaze fixated on her humps voluptuoulsy all in a sudden. The blatant lust, accompanied by a facial expression that reminded JJ terribly much of an animal or some of those unsubs who had tortured women without regretting anything, caused a cold shiver to ran down her spine. He didn't attemt to hide his fantasy but finally shrugged his shoulders. "Fine, I suppose you know the number."

"Thank you."

She hurried to find 2-35, taking the stairs since the elevator did not look trustworthy and smelled as if someone would have recently thrown up in there. What _really _grossed her out was the educated guess that this might not have been as recently as smell suggested. This place had probably not seen a cleaner for years.

_And _this_ is what I left case-closed pizza night for?_

JJ smiled at the inwardly sarcasm and needed a few seconds to recall her reason to be here. If Emily would have asked her to come to Africa she would have found an excuse to go there, too. Of it had been Asia - fine, she had always hoped to have a look at the Gate Of Heavenly Peace. If it had been a vulcano her skin would at least tanned a little.

_Everything._

She knocked at 2-35 and stepped back to wait, figuring that Emily would very likely check carefully for who waited for her outside. Poor woman. She had to be scared.

_Who am I kidding? She's so strong._

Meanwhile JJ was totally aware that strengh and scare weren't each other's oposite and neither did being scared meant to be weak. She knew Emily was strong. But she knew as well to what a troubled life her friend was about to return to.

"JJ?"

"Yes. It's me. Ehm... do you want me to hold my badge in front of the spyhole? I can do this I you need proof for that I am who I am and..."

The same moment the door flew open and JJ gasped for breath as she found herself in a great big hug. It took her almost a couple of seconds until she was able to return it and the two women stood in the middle of the hallway, embracing each other like they had been apart for years. JJ noticed tearn rolling down her cheeks. Emily's as well as her own ones.

"It's so good to see you again!", Emily laughed, too loud for being that close to JJ's ears but the blond didn't care about the noise, "I missed you so much, all of you. I thought... oh my gosh, come in. We shouldn't be out here for too long, sorry."

Emily's room was much cleaner than the parts of the building JJ had seen so far.

"I smell... you cleaned this up pretty well. How long did it take?"

"Hm, let me guess... feels like getting this room clean from plague, mold and whatever creepy stuff was the crust covering the bathroom mirror and the tiles in the shower took my whole life. But I believe I got over _every _feeling of disgust I once had concerning... everything, now that I think about it."

"So, how are you doing?"

"Oh, I'm fine", Emily answered. She shrugged as JJ gave her a wondering look. This wasn't want she had meant to say. Neither was it true nor was it a clever lie. It was plain stupid.

"How are you doing?", JJ asked again, rather demanding than requesting. As much as she liked to see Emily again - her friend being back to DC was a danger she couldn't ignore. Trouble would come up again and she could not be left in the dark. Hiding in France with a new identity was an option, having dangerous secrets in DC was not.

"I'm... I don't know, JJ. Seriously. I missed all of you so much. I felt like... like I couldn't..."

Emily swallowed instead of finishing the sentence, leaving JJ curious. But she decided to not ask anything else about it. She was sure Emily would tell her sooner or later. But if her strongest friend had to return because she felt whatever it was it had to bee serious. It had to be aweful. And she would be the last one to push it.

"Alright", she nodded and went to sat down on the grey-brown couch which stood at the other side of the room, "you know what you are doing, I know I don't have to question that. But you know DC is a dangerous place for you to stay and I just need to ask you what your plans are. What is it that you're looking for back here, Emily?"

JJ was shocked when tears began to stream down Emily's face again. She quickly got up and embraced her friend another time. But it took Emily not more than half a minute to gain controle over her emotions again.

"I just had hoped that maybe... I could get back my life", she whispered, her voice still being a little hoarse but broadly steady, "this is all I want, JJ. Even if it's going to kill me."

The blonde nodded slowly, concidering the options Emily had. Actually there weren't that many.

"Okay", she agreed, "let's see how we're going to do that."


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N:**

First of all: Thanks to HestiaRue14 for giving me a review. That was awesome!

However, I'm still not satisfied. Again I noticed that some more people put this on **Altert**. While this is already being amazing & wonderful I highly recommend to take like 30 Seconds or so to **also give me some feedback**. :)

The disclaimer stays the same.

I know that in season 6 Henry should be like 2 to 3 years old. However, I made him 4 to 5. Just needed him to be a little older.

I might mention that this chapter will contain a little bit of violence. But it's not really graphic or anythin. Seriously - _Itchy and Scratchy_ (btw, I do not own _the Simpsons_) is a lot more violent.

&& you won't believe how much I messed this chapter up when I wrote it the first time. Yeees, this is the second version because the first one was full with torture and Aby Sayyaf after I watched one of those documentations/ shows where people are trelling their storyies from going to holiday somewhere and ending up in a total nightmare. Then I watched the 3rd _NCIS_ (which again I don't own) season final another time and totally messed up this plot w/ the tv program and the books by Cody McFadyen (to my defense: It was like 4am and I was totally deadbeat but couldn't sleep though).

However, this version should be free of bloomers.

Enjoy! (I assume some do since I can see people read this in the statistics. So **review!** Oh, why won't you review? (*dramatic cry*)

Thanks.

* * *

><p>The room was awefully cold and so was her son's body. The small boy weared nothing but his pyjamas and the oversized sweatshirt she had slept in and pulled over him in order to keep him as warm as possible.<p>

It had been a cold but somehow comfortable night. Well, that's how it had begun. By now chances were good it would turn out to be the first of a couple of wirst nights ever... or their very last night at all. How weird that her nightmare seemed to begin just when she had hoped things would turn out fine. How ironic. How cruel.

"Mommy, I'm freezing", Henry whimpered and JJ gently rubbed his back. She held him tightly to her own body but wasn't wearning more than shorts and a tanktop. The temperature had definitly been under freezing point this night and it was only a few degrees warmer inside the cell, probably in a basement, where they were kept. At best.

"I know, honey", she whispered and put a gentle kiss on top of his hair, "I'll get us out of here and you can have a bath for as long as you want and I'll make you the largest cup of hot chocolate ever, you'll see."

"But where are we?"

"I... I don't know yet, honey. But I'll find out and then we'll be fine."

For a couple of minutes they were sitting there quite. She felt Henry had goosebumps all over his body and both of them shivered with cold. It hurt JJ that she hadn't been able to protect her son in the first place. But everything had happened so fast. Someone had woken her up, pressing a hand to her mouth to mute her scream. And then he had seen Henry, in _his_ arms. And a hunting knife. And plenty of other men who were heavily armed... and the fear of his life had been paralyzing her. She felt so guilty for not protecting him. It was all her fault that they were down here. That maybe her son would be the one to pay the prize for her fault. For her weakness.

"Mommy?"

"What is it, peanut?"

"I'm scared."

"Yes, I... I know. But you don't have to be."

"How do you know? They don't look nice."

"I know you're scared because I'm scared, too and that's okay. But honey... I know this man. He's a bad guy but he has a son, too and... I promise I won't let anything happen to you. Okay? You'll be alright."

"You're the cops. Why can't you lock him up?"

"Oh Henry", she whispered and tears streamed down her face. The salty water congealed halfway down her cheeks. She was glad Henry couldn't see them and she knew that he was simply being curious. But his words felt so accusing. And more than that - they felt so terribly true, "that's difficult to explain. You know Aaron, Spence, Penelope, Dave and Ashley, right? They are my friends and they make me strong. All alone I am not so strong. But they'll come find us and I'll make sure nobody does anything bad to you. You know I love you, right?"

He looked up to her face and smiled a small, blue-lipped smile.

"I love you too, Mommy."

She hold Henry tighter as the only door swung open and Doyle entered the room. He smiled, focussing on the boy.

"Hey there, happy family."

He took a step forward and outstreched his right arm to grab Henry. JJ moved back until she touched the cold concrete wall but he came even closer to them. She didn't mean to show her fear but she had no other chance than to back down. She was painfully aware of how close her son was to the man who was the textbook example of a bad guy, the bogeyman, the monster in the closet.

"Don't take him!", she hissed, "Take me instead."

"Let go of him or I'll beat you to death in front of his eyes. Way to take the innocence of childhood."

JJ didn't react. She had no clue what to do but if she knew one thing it was that she wouldn't just give up her son to that bastard. He had killed a child before and if not he would be the one to do something... those men were all the same. They were all bad and she couldn't know _what kind of_ bad each of them were.

"So why don't you give it a try? You were terribly sucky in killing helpless people recently."

Too late she noticed how heavy his footwear really was. She quickly pushed Henry behind her back as she saw his heavy-booted right foot moving towards her thorax. The steel-toe cap contacted with ribs and made them crack plainly audible. Henry shrieked and began to cry and she felt him clinging to her shoulders. His touch was what gave her the strength to supress her own scream that desperately wanted to escape from her lips. Instead she forced herself to smile.

"Nice try, I'll give you that." Talking to Doyle hurt. Even though it had only been one offense so far her ribcase burned like hell. JJ knew she wouldn't be able to keep him from taking Henry. But she would fight to the last breath. Even if it meant she had to take a bazillion of kicks for the rest of her, likely not as long as she had expected, life. "But one who uses children to get what he wants can't really be that strong. Come back as a decent man and we can talk about whatever it is that you want."

"I see you have the strong will to protect your son", Doyle stated, still smiling at her, "it should be easy to break your will then. I'll come back to you later. And I'm sure you'll be gratefully giving me the answers I need."

She didn't have time to think of a snappy good answer on his words. Before she could even try to get between the man and the boy, Doyle kicked her routhly aside, not as much to cause her physical pain as to get her out of the way. Her head slammed to the concrete ground and JJ saw stars interfering the gruesome picture of Henry being grabbed by a monster.

"Lets see how good _you_ handle having your son stolen from you."

She tried to get up but her head was aching too much. She fell down again and her broken ribs sent another wave of pain through her body. This time JJ failed to hide her scream.

"No! No, please don't take Henry! _NO!"_

"I love you mommy."

His voice was squeaky. It always got squeaky when he was afraid of something. But it was more than she could take. The door closed before she was able to answer. She could only hope that he wouldn't forget how much she loved him.

Overwhealmed by desperation JJ sunk down at the cold floor, curled up to a ball, crying and sobbing. She ha no doubts that Doyle had always been plain evil but for the first time ever she understood at least some of his rage.

And she hated that man like she never did before.

She would move heaven and earth to kill him.

* * *

><p>"Yeah, JJ?"<p>

"Hello? Is this you, Emily?"

"Oh... hey, Henry. Why are you calling me from your mom's cell?"

"I'm supposed to tell you that he got us and he'll do with what he got what should be done to what he wants." He seemed to have trouble getting what he was told in the right order and thought about what else he was instructed to say. "Lauren can't take too much time, he says. He'll call to give proof of life but too for what kind of life it is." Henry paused for a couple of seconds. "Please come save us, he hit mommy and that's forbidden. There's a law and you're police but she says she's not strong with no team! It's so cold and dark and I wanna go home and daddy will be sad when he comes home and we're away! The bad man said you'll save us... please."

* * *

><p>Clear thinking was impossible as the same thoughts ran through her head again and again.<p>

Doyle had JJ and Henry. His intention was obvious. He would get Emily. She wouldn't hesitate to turn herself in as long as it meant that he would let his hostages go. She would happily die for Henry and JJ. They were his leverage but the problematic point was that Doyle wasn't known for fair trading. He wasn't known for being true to his word. And he certainly wasn't known for just letting valuable suspects walk off.

Emily still was in the hostel room, nervously pacing up and down. Henry's call had been a shock. Both JJ and herself had discussed the danger of Emily's reutn but non of them had expected Doyle to make a move that fast. If it wouldn't have been for their lifes Emily would have went straight to the irish pub. Some of Doyle's men would always be there and the problem would be solved.

But it wasn't all that easy. She knew he would kill them. If she simply did what he wanted he would kill the three of them, only at different times. He wasn't trustworthy. he wasn't fair. There were plenty reasons to even doubt he was human.

This was when Emily decided to die. There was no obvious way to avoid that fate anyway. But she would give and try everything to get them out there alive. And she needed help.

She quickly grabbed her purse, ran out of the hostel and stopped a cab at the side of the street.

"Where to?"

"FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, please. I know that's far..."

"Don't worry 'bout the distance", the driver mumbled, "but that's gonna cost you quite a lot."

"I know", Emily sighted and took a last glance at the hostel, "I know."


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N:**

Thanks **a lot** to crazyobsessions101 ,HestiaRue14, wolfdream & PrentissFan for reviewing Chapter 9! FOUR whole, amazing, great, wonderful reveiws! This totally made my weekend! I would have liked to at least reply to them w/ a "Thank you" but Google Chrome keeps telling me the link is too old and invalid so I'm doing it right here: **Thank you!** This was **amazing!**

This time I'm uploading the original chapter. I only watched _The Simpsons_ before & I think I kept it free of that show.

Disclaimer stays the same. And I'm suffering from a lack of new Criminal Minds already. This season finale wasn't really that exciting but pretty good though. And most of all I'm so excited about whether they'll keep TG in the show or not... AAAH, it's freaking me out!

So here's the 10th chapter. I hope you like it. Btw... it's amazing how many visitors this story has. Well, I don't know if that really are many or not... but compared to my NCIS story (68 visitors... don't read it ever, it's gruesome) 1626 visitors appear to be quite an improvement to me. :D

So... I'm always happy 'bout getting **more reviews. **It's simply super awesome to read them.

Enjoy!

~ AJ

* * *

><p>"Good morning, Ma'am. What is your concern?"<p>

Emily had tried to prepare herself for this in the cab. The plan had been easy. Going into the building. Telling the truth. Getting JJ and Henry the help they needed. Then leaving and dying. But as the secutiry man asked her the first, simple question her knees seemed to turn to jelly, his words echoed inside her head and her sense of reality vanished. This wasn't the right place for her to be any more. She tried to enter a life that was no longer her's. If she had just stayed in Paris...

"Ma'am, what-?"

"I... I need to see SSA Aaron Hotchner from the BAU", Emily ejaculated quickly, shaking her head in order to dispel the sudden disorientation. This was so not place or time to allowe failure.

"I need to check your ID before I can let you go up there. May I ask you why you need to see him?"

"See, that part is a little tricky", she began to explain and tried to think of how to put it best, "one of his Agents, FBI media liason Jennifer Jareau, and her son were abducted by Ian Doyle. I'm sure you know who he is. There was quite some trouble with him the past few weeks-"

"Killed one of Hotchner's Agents, I know."

"Yes. I mean - that's him but he didn't kill the Agent. That's me. It was all fake. And I need to see Hotch really bad because I can't think of another way to save JJ and Henry."

He stared at Emily in disbelief, cocking his eyebrows while trying to weight up whether she was telling the truth or being a creepy safety hazard. Eventually he seemed to come to the conclusion that she was somehow both at the same time.

"Just to get that right - you are Emily Prentiss? The one who was taken and stabbed by Ian Doyle?"

"Yes, I am. But it didn't kill me."

"And now an Agent and her son are kidnapped?"

"Yes. And child abduction makes in an FBI case. And because this abduction is Doyle's deed and Doyle is a BAU case this concerns Hotch. And he needs this information as fast as possible. You can probably figure that out on your own."

Even though Emiyl tried to keep her voice calm she sounded noticeable vexed. The man eyeballed her thoroughly and called for one of his colleagues.

"Bring her up the the BAU", he instructed the other man briefly, "she has no ID and... I don't want to let her go up there alone. Just see her to Agent Hotchner."

"Follow me."

They went into the elevator and again Emiyl felt as if she would lose ground. A relievesd sight came over her lips when she saw none of the team was inside. That would have been awkward but she knew it would only get worse. It was basically impossible to enter Hotch's office without crossing the bullpen and being noticed by everyone in there. If she was lucky Reid would be absorbed in literature, Garcia with her computers, Rossi in his office and Morgan and Ashley getting coffee or something.

_And maybe they'll be all together and then... _

Yes. What then?

The elevator's door opened with a soft _bling_ and Emily and the man left it. She noticed her photo on the wall of those Agents who died while fulfilling their duty and the picture inwardly dealed a blow to her. They really thought she was dead. It hit her hard. She remembered seeing them after Haley's death. She remembered how she had felt after losing Matthew. The grief she had felt had been incredible. And she had done the exact same thing to them. On purpose. Never really thinking how _they_ might feel.

"Almost there", the man said, "I'll wait until you're in his office and then I'll leave again. One of the Agents up here will excort you out of the building, I guess."

He stood still, noticing that Emily hesitated to move. Following her glimpse he saw the photo, too. His eyes flip-flopped between the wall and her, irritation and disbelief appeared in his face and he even closed his eyes for a few seconds as if he wanted to check whether he was having a dream.

"Is she-? oh my god, she's you! You're her, I mean- that's impossible. Are you her twin or something?"

"This is... very difficult to explain. I would prefere to see Agent Hotchner now."

"Yes, of course. I suppose you know where it is so we'll just... whatever. Follow me."

To Emily's surprize the bullpen was empty and so seemed to be Hotch's office. The man knocked at the door, waited and knocked again. Emily even managed to gasp out a shaky, unconfident "Hotch" which should have provoced a reaction but nothing happened. Finally, despite the security guy's protest, she yanked the door open to see that the office was indeed unmanned.

"You didn't know they have a case?", Emily snarled and angrily shut the door again, "duh, what are you working as? A delivery man or what?"

"I'm sorry, how am I supposed to-"

"It's the _BAU_. There're pretty famous and it's just... people who work here usually know that kind of stuff." He looked guitly and Emily sighted. "Okay, sorry. It's not your fault. I'll make a few calls and then... there'll be a solution. I'm sure they already noticed JJ's missing and some Unit moves heaven and earth to find her and... I'll iron this out. Do you think you could leave me alone? I swear I won't mess anything up. I... have experience with this kind of work."

"You're her, right? You're the dead woman?"

"Yes. A woman and her kid will die because I survived if I don't do anything. Let me do this. Please."

"Okay", he agreed and turned around to walk off, "you are where I was supposed to accompany you to. I guess one can say that you're not my responsibility now so... good luck, Agent Prentiss."

"Thank you."

* * *

><p>Garcia's door wasn't compeltely closed so Emily could watch her without being noticed right away. She had to concentrate on keeping her breathing deep and calm as she saw the woman bustling around her PCs, typing in things with her fingery flying over the keyboard, pulling one miracle after another out of the head. It was a relief to see that the tech analyst still seemed to be widely herself while hindering herself from bursting into the room to hug her meant agony.<p>

Nevertheless Emily was afraid of knocking on the door and standing before Garcia's very eyes. Garcia's last word to her had been the one's on her voicemail and Emily had listened to them countless times whil recovering at the hospital. She hadn't been able to take the phone with her to Paris but the voicemail had made her doubt her decision until the plane had taken off. What those kind, sorrowful words had expressed was love. Plain amicable love. And pretending to be dead was almost the exact oposite. The motives didn't matter. Emily had hurt the one who wanted to save her. She had failed friendship.

"Penelope?"

Her voice was not as calm, not as strong as she wanted it to be. She had the bravery to turn herself in so that Doyle could kill her. She wasn't truly strong enough to face her friend though. Emily pushed the door open and took a shy step into the small room. The other woman turned around, pure scare in her eyes.

"You are not real!", she gasped, clinging to the tabletop behind her as if she wanted to restrain herself from moving "go away, _you are not real_!"

"Yes, I am. It's me, I'm-", she tried to say but felt too helpless to even finish the phrase. She had expected Garcia to be... yes, to react how? Angry, happy, furious, desperate, crying, laughing, loving, rejecting, screaming, offending. Maybe a crazy, overwhealming combination or even all of this at the same time. What she had not expected was that the analyst would not trust her cognition.

"You. Are. Not. Really. Here. You werehere before. But you weren't really. I'm over this. I saw Doctor Martens just yesterday. He said I'm doing great. He explained it many times and I am _done_w this. You're impossible. You aren't really there. I know it. I know it!"

Emily approached and Garcia flinched from her.

"Go _away_! I don't want to think you're there any longer, I can't take this!"

Her voice was high and loud. Emily saw tears in her face and they hurt as if someone'd burned her skin. She knew that at first some people imagined to see the ones who just died. They daydreamed of them. They saw someone who looked similar and couldn't help raising new hope. Sometimes they just forgot about their deaths and suddenly had thought like _This I have to tell her!_ before remembering everything. But this didn't last very long. They stopped seeing dead ones. Garcia had obviously stopped seeing Emily for quite a while, making use of a therapist. She was scared of her sanity.

"You think I'm a halucination, don't you?", Emily asked, even though the answer was obvious. These were the first words that came to her mind. She felt terrible for being guilty for this desaster. If she would have known before...

"Oh no, don't try this on me another time. I _know_ you are one. I've been to your funeral. I'm bringing you flowers _there_."

"Please, can I just have one try! I will give you proof that I am real. I am so sorry for doing this to you."

"How do you want to do this?", she asked sceptically but nodded her agreement, "Doctor Martens told methe explanations won't be sufficient if I look at them in a rational way. Your _proof_ will not sustain. Go on try. Maybe you'll disappear a little faster then."

Emily hesitated, not sure if her idea was such a good one.

"You never saw me again. I left and you never saw me. You know what happened. But you don't really know... details." She slowly lifted her shirt until the scar in her abdomen was on display. "You don't hallucinate things you never saw and never really knew." She pulled her shirt down again, shoved off her scarf and opened one of the upper buttons of her shirt. "This is his sign. It is real. Please trust me. I don't know what else to tell you. Run a search for Jeanne L'Aigrette. She arrived a week ago in DC. Her passport picture. It's me. That's a fact. That's technique and that's your thing."

"You don't hallucinate things you never really knew", Garcia mumbled and too late Emily realized that the woman did not look at the clover outlines but at her throat. This she had forgotten about under the pressure of making Garica believe her excistence. That very stood up and approached Emily until she stood right in front of her. Slowly Garcia raised one hand and gently touched the other woman's cheek. Then her shoulder. First soft, then a little harder until Emily stumbled one step back.

"I believe you", she whispered in a tearful voice and embraced Emily strong and utterly, "oh my god, Emily, what did you do? _What did you do to us?_"

"I was in Paris so that _he_ would think I'm dead and not harm any of you. JJ helped me. I lived there. I wanted to go back home. I missed you-"

Garcia let go of her embracement and looked at the returnee.

"You tried to kill yourself", she stated in a quite but plain voice, "I am right, am I not?"

Emily tried to answer but found that words failed her. She was barely able to nodd before she break out in tears and flung her arms around Garcia's neck. She hold her tight and gently rubbed her back until Emily ran dry on tears.

"I am so, _so _very sorry. I tried my best to protect you. All of you."

"I know. I'm glad you're alive."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

btw - not everyone will react as nice as Garcia does. Some will be very mad. Just to tell you that. I'm not going to make this story filled with nothing but harmony. :)

"But I'm... I shouldn't have- This... this is about JJ."


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N:**

This chapter is rather short. Or actually... it's about as long as the others were but looks longer in my text program due to the dialogues.

First of all again: Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. Those were crazyobsessions101, HestiaRue14, therealmrsedwardcullen2013 & blackandblueangel.

I love getting your reviews!

& of course thanks to everyone who put this on alert. I think I got one or two e-mails aknowledging me about new people following this.

HestiaRue14 asked whether there'll be pairing in this story. I thought about trying some Emily/Morgan but am not sure if this will work out. Truth to be told - I don't really believe in true love and am not that good with empathy, socializing and emotional connection and stuff like that. But I think I'll try & hope it'll work out okay. :)

This chapter contains again violence. There's no blood in it though. Originally I've been planning on not hurting JJ. But since I started to read some whump fanfictions it sorta... began to rub off on me. So that's why. xD

The disclaimer stays the same. But if you happen to meen someone who owns Criminal Minds - use some pickpocket skills (not that I actually have some... I destroy what I touch) and get them for me!

So... I hope you like it.

**Please** **read & review!** It's so awesome to get reviews!

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><p>"Kwan-li-so Nr.22 Haengyong. Now, do you know where this is, Jennifer?"<p>

His cold voice sent shivers down her spinal but more that that JJ barely showed a reation. Almost as much as her fear of Henry's wellbeing the icecold temperature had began to numb her. At first it had only been painful. She had paced up and down but this had increased the pain her ribs caused her and not helped her to get warmer. Then it had started to smart as if she stood on fore and now even this very last feeling had vanished. There was nothing left. Henry wasn't there. She wouldn't see Will ever again. Even the pain had decided to leave her. Doyle's presence couldn't fright her.

She knew she would eventually end up dead - so what was there to be afraid of?

He gave her a bright, excited smile and JJ realozed he had something in his hand which he put on a projection on the wall towards her. A small, red light started to shine. It was a camera and whatever this meant - it would be bad. Very bad.

"Bastard-City?", she answered sarcastically and paid immediatly by being kicked again. JJ didn't even bother screaming. As Doyle came closer to her she came to find that there _was_ fear left. He was a father, too. He wouldn't just kill a child. Or maybe he would - but since he had her onl for the purpose of getting Emily he wanted to agonize her. He wouldnt do anything to Henry while she wasn't present. Or maybe he would just because he was evil - but would he kill precious leverage, too?

"Oh come on, talk to me for a bit. I've been very polite so far but... yes, maybe that's more an irish than an american thing, isn't it?"

He lifted one of his feet and put it on JJ's left one before she could withdraw it from him. The rubber sole of his boots felt wet and hard, rough enough to give its carrier support on glaze and snow, colder where nails had been banged into it. Without changing his facial expression the least bit, he suddenly put all his wight onto this foot. Hers was sandwiched between chipped concrete and his incredibly heavy body. Impossible to simply swallow the scream. It escaped from her lips, loud and heart-percing while she was sure she had to die now. This _had _to be impossible to survive. She felt her metatarsal bones being crushed but couldn't hear the sickening sound of it due to the, much worse, noise of her agony. And his laughers.

It was possible that she lost consciousness but she didn't know for sure. All she realized was the pain and if it was inerrupted by calm blackness she missed this time of relief completely. Eventually she stopped screaming and gasped for air. Lying on her right to charge the left side of her thorax as little as possible had been almost comfortable. Now she was afraid of changing her position while at the same time totally aware that she was defenseless. No matter what else he would do - she hadn't the ability to even try fighting. She might be able to pull off a fight for Henry. But concerning herself it seemed to be impossible now.

"Please excuse the interruption, I believe we had a conversation, hadn't we?"

JJ couldn't give an answer on that. Wasn't willing and pretty much unable to. Every cell of her body seemed to refuse talking to that man.

"I'll explain you the rules of this _again_ and maybe you'll find pleasure in my company then."

This time there wasn't much physical effort necessary. A short, not even strong, nudge against her foot was plenty enough to provoce the exact same reaction as the previous injury had. JJ pressed her teeth together and scratched her arm until blood dripped from it while trying to keep controle over herself.

"Hadn't we?", he repeated, even before she had calmed down again.

"Yes." She forced her mouth to form the word and was glad it was audible. Doyle smiled.

"Talking is so much nicer when two people participate, isn't it?"

Another time of of this damn Yes-or-No questions. It was another way to humiliate her.

_If you're having candy right before supper you won't be hungry enough to eat some of the good, healtyh stuff and you'll get sick. Do you understand this? Lying in bed ill won't be that much fun, will it?_

She had had this conversation with Henry probably a week ago. She had had plenty of those with him. And now Doyle was doing... this. It was a twisted, ferocious perverion of something small-child-like.

"If you think so."

"Now, lets get back to where we started. I bet you know where it is, right?"

"North Korea. Hamgyong-pukto."

"Someone knows her geography."

"I know some stuff you wouldn't even dream of."

"And I bet you can tell me some of your secrets, too. I'm dying to find out... oh, you know what."

"I guess I do."

When JJ finally brought up the strengh to paint a bright, sarcastic smile on her face, Doyle's vanished for only a split second - but she noticed. The fortitude came out of nowhere but others - Reid when he survived Tobias Hankel, Hotch when Foyet stabbed him and both Elle and Garcia after they got shot- had proven that one had always more energy, more endurance than expected.

"Why, I believe protection is pretty much of a secret to you irish guys, isn't it? I could explain how to use the colorful, flavoured balloons if you'd like. I can see Emily might have shown you already but... oh yeah, she was too smart to fall for you so maybe she lied and breathing in helium through them so that your voice sounds funny while you whisper her name doesn't really do it."

"You think you're stronger than I am. Don't you?"

"Being better than a sick little bastard like you are one isn't _that_ much of a challenge, really."

JJ took a deep breath in prepearation for a new wave of intesne, burning pain, even though she knew that no matter how 'prepared' she was it would be overwhealming. But nothing happened this time. She slowly breathed out again, not letting drop her attention yet.

"I apprechiate you're being honest", Doyle said and grinned, "and I belibe you when you say you're a strong woman. But I'm a curious man so I just need to know... Jennifer, what do you think how strong little Henry can be?"

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><p>"Oh my God!", Garcia gasped after Emily had quickly told her what had happened, "Strauss called today to say JJ informed her she would be sick and unable to come in and I thought... <em>no<em>!"

"Some of Doyle's men must have faked the call, maybe they enforced it or have a female member."

"And Henry was the one calling?"

Emily nodded.

"Thank God, at least we can be sure he's alive. So... Doyle _will give proof of life but too of what kind of life it is_. He'll hurt them, won't he? Emily?"

Emily swallowed hard before she managed to answer.

"Yes, he will. According to henry he already did so... we need to hurry."

"Sure. We don't really have a case. There weren't important requests so I picked an easier one. Not even murder victims yet, it's mostly a financial thing - and still in Virginia. They can be here in about an hours or so... which is way too long but we can't lose any more time."

Saying those words Garcia grabbed her cell and then hesitated.

"What do I tell them?"

"The whole truth."

"Alright", she nodded, pressing speed dial, "I'll try my best."

_"Hotchner."_

"Hotch, thank God you took the call!"

"_Garcia. What is it?"_

"You need to come back... All of you. Right now.. it's... oh my, it's so aweful, you have to.. go jum into your cars and hurry back home! We can't do this all on our own, it'll be impossible. Gosh, I was so happy but now it's all coming back-"

"_Hey, hey. Garcia - calm down. Take a deep breath._", Hotch instructed and she did as he told her - Hotch always knew how to keep controle over himself. He knew what he was talking about. "_And now tell me what's going on. Calm. Brief."_

"Okay, I... I can do that", Garcia began and closed her eyes, blocking out her colorful and yet so troubled surrounding world, "you need to come back because the case you are on right now is not important but the one we have over here is. Ian Doyle took JJ and Henry. It's for sure. And he is going to hurt them. You are the guys who always save each other, you're my people and that's why we need you here. As soon as possible. We all know what kind of man this is. I don't need to point out how severe this is."

Garcia choked. Her close friend and godson were both missing and it seemed to lacerate her heart. She had always feared that something would happen to Henry or to a member of her family - again. Things happened all the time only now she was sure she wouldn't feel as bad if she didn't knew who had taken them. If it still would be an UnSub.

"_This... a-are you really... being serious, this is-"_

Hotch's words failed him for the first time ever. His voice was reserved and controled, as always but even though garcia couldn't see him she knew that he was as scared as she was. It took plenty to make Aaron Hotchner show confusion. Or fear. Or overpowering. Or anything at all.

"Please come back", the tech analyst whispered into her phone, "I can't go through this another time. Bring them back to me!"

"_I'll tell the others. We're on our way."_

He hung up and left a very desperate woman.

"You didn't tell him I'm here, too", Emily acknowledged and Garcia answered with simply shaking her head. In fact, her entire body was shaking. Emily gently took the blond's hand and looked her straight into the eyes.

"Thank you. And... You need to know that with your help I will bring them back to you. I will give everything and with your help they will be fine. This is bad, I know. And Doyle is an aweful man... ut the end of this is cleare. It's a happy one. JJ and Henry will live. And they'll be okay. I promise."

"You're telling me this as if you knew you won't-"

Garcia's voice broke. She was unable to speak it out. Unable, to face this another time.

"No, I won't get through this alive. But it's the right thing to do and that all what really matters."


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N:**

Thanks a lot to HestiaRue14, crazyobsessions101, Wolfybaby and lazerwolf314 for commenting on the last chapter. Especially I want to thank for some criticism but this might be the moment to mention that I tend to get a little defensive. Sometimes.

I mentioned Will only in an accessory sentence or two. He's in Norfolk (haha, I had to look up again to find out where I put him) and attends a conference about witness protection. But JJ mentions he's away when she's excusin herself to see Emily so maybe it seemed to be part of her lie then...

I didn't really describe how JJ and Henry were taken because... okay, I admit I suck in those kind of scenes. So the short explanation in Chapter 9 must be enough. xD But I don't think I'll let the story have breaks like that again & explain the upcoming situations better.

The disclaimer stays the same. But **Paget Brewster is returning next season** & **Rachel Nichols has to leave the show!** The latter I think is sad but former... yay! The cast (presuming that Thomas Gibson will get a contract which I hope he will) will be just as great as it was before CBS started messing with Criminal Minds a year ago. Yet I thought Rachel Nichols did a great job, especially regarding that she was seen as a simple replacement by many fans and Ashley Seaver was a poorly defined character. She had to face a trying situation but did very well.

I quotes the beginning of the third strophe of the irish song _Danny Boy_. I do not own (but certainly love) it.

Short Warning: This chapter contains the mention of child abuse. No description of it though. I'm not describing those things and I always admire that Criminal Minds can have very cruel and brutal scenes but treats the topic of children being victims with a certain respect and sensibility.

I think I will indeed try to get a Morgan/ Emily pairing in this story or at least something close to that. I cut the plans I had for the plot so I'm not sure whether I'll have Emily survive or die. This might end up being even more out of character as it is right now. Like in this chapter... yes. Very. I don't tend to be that tearful in real life. xD

So I hope you'll enjoy reading this rather short chapter. My a/n is almost longer than it. lol

**Read & Review!** Please, I love getting them!

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><p>He lay in her arms and didn't move. His eyes were closed, his face relaxed - if he'd be lying in a bed she would have thought he was peacefully sleeping. She remembered how her, Will and Henry watched a movie all together. Once a month Henry would be allowed to go to bed way too late. He was the one to pick the movie but he wouldn't make it to the end most of the time. He looked so similar to how he fell asleep between Will and her while watching <em>Brother Bear<em>.

But since he was in hell this wasn't the case. She felt his pulse and harkened for his breath every other second. Both were there. Palpable and audible. Assuring. Yet she was afraid he might just not wake up again. It would spare him much suffering but, oh God, it would take so many of the pleasures of life that he would probably never experience.

She gently caressed his cheek. It was awefully cold.

"Henry, wake up, honey. It's going to be okay, do you hear me? Please... Henry, please wake up!"

Her tears fell on his cheeks. But he didn't answer. Didn't move.

A large bruise had formed on his forehead which was the main reason for JJ's worry. She was pretty sure he had a concussion. She most likely had gotten one, too when her head had harshly connected to the ground before Doyle had taken Henry from her. Before she had failed to be a good mother. And now she, the one who -if at all- was supposed to suffer Doyle's revenge- was awake while Henry was not. He was too young to have a concussion due to a terrorist's punch. JJ knew that concussion-patients weren't allowed to sleep at first and needed to be watched. Sleeping or being unconcious was dangerous. Especially for four year olds.

A cerebral bleeding could easily kill them.

Kill her son.

* * *

><p>"They should be here every minute", Garcia stated nervously, for maybe the hundredth time since she had called Hotch, "oh my God, Emily, <em>what <em>is taking them so long?"

"As long as Reid isn't at the wheel of one of the cars I'm sure they're heading here leadfooted."

"Well, if this _would be_ the case they would already be standing here! Aren't they aware at all of how bad this is? Do they even _care_?"

The moment she said it she regretted it already.

"Of course they do", she mumbled and took Emily's hand, edgily squeezing it, "I know they care and they'll make everything... just fine. They will. I can rely on that, can't I?"

"Of course you ca-", Emily was just about to reassure her friend but was interrupted by the ringtone of her cell. Nobody except JJ knew the number. She knew who it would be.

"Try to trace the call!", she directed Garcia who imediatley let go of her hand and turned towards her computers.

"Doyle?", Emily answered the phone, trying to let her voice sound calm and fearless. With a pinch of determination. At least that's what she had aimed at.

"_Hello Lauren_."

His voice sounded too familiar to Emily. She couldn't avert getting goosebumps all over. The feelings that had been part of her decision to leave to Paris were back right away. As if someone would always be on her tail. The fear. The sleepless nights. The meticulousness it had taken to install every alert system she could think of and the knowledge that her life could take a sudden end every second - because Doyle was only one man but yet everywhere.

It was the feeling that she could not fight him because somehow he had always been the better, the winning one. He was too strong for her but running away was as impossible. Two times she had pretended to be dead. But neither as Lauren nor as herself this had been successfull. She had failed. She would fail again and again and again.

Except that this time she wouldn't even try.

"What do you want?"

She saw Garcia typing hasty, maps and numbers appearing and vanishing on the computer screens.

"_You know what I want._"

Did he laugh?

"But I can't give it to you just the way you expect it", Emily tried to keep the conversation animated, "I'm having a problem with guys like you - you oughta know by now."

"_Oh Lauren, it's easy. I want you. Jennifer wants her son. And her son wants his life. It's quite simple._"

His words seemed to burn her like blazing heat.

"Yeah. Except that I'm not exactly trusting people like you. I need to have the assurance that they'll live. If you give me that I will give myself to you. How are you planning to do that?"

"_Not at all. I am not negotianting. You come. Trust I'll let them go._"

"I can only repeat - I cannot trust you. Let's not pretend you're an honest-"

"_You want to hear the truth?"_, he harshly interrupted her, his voice rather filled with anger than mockery now, "_I have a better idea. Why don't you have a look at it by yourself? Because what I told young Henry here to bring to you was certaily not a lie! I'm true to my words. Maybe you'll trust me with that in a minute!_"

He hung up and within a second all evil had left her cell and exchanged wiht the dial tone.

"Did you trace the call?"

"I... no", Garcia stammered, "I don't know how this is possible! I tried everything but- ..I couldn't, I don't know- Did I just kill JJ with that? Oh my god, no- I... I-"

"Please stay calm - he'll call again or I'll call him. They will be okay. Doyle wants me and he needs them to get- Wait a second", Emily said, taking a look at her cell again "I think I just got a MMS. It's... quite a huge file, a video maybe. But I think this cell is too old to play it."

"Let me have look on that! I'll get that on my computers and we'll see what you got there."

"I'm afraid I know what we'll-"

But what they got to see and hear was so different from what they had expected. Searching for solace Garcia went back to embracing Emily but could not find what she was looking for. She had always tried to protect herself from what she was working with every day and being surrounded by plush and fluff instead of sickening images had worked out fine.

From now on Penelope Garcia would be a haunted woman.

A surviving victim of Ian Doyle.

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><p><em>And when ye come, and all the flow'rs are dying; If I am dead, as dead as I well be...<em>

The soft, sweet melody was one of the things both Emily and Garcia loved about Ireland. But the version they were listening to now wasn't the sentimental pleasuring melody they were used to.

Doyle had sent them some sort of a remix of what he had done to JJ and Henry. They started at the dark, low quality pictures of a scared mother trying to protect her terrified child. A few clips showed them how JJ was being tortured by Doyle - followed by what was even worse.

He had hurt Henry. They had proof. Not only had he scared him, had scared JJ by threatening her to hurt him - he had _really_ done it. He had raised his dirty hands against a boy who had proudly sent Garcia a self-made postcard with nothing but a pirate, a bunch of glitzy stickers and his name on it - which he had learned to write all by himself not even a month ago.

But the worst part of the video was the sound. The song. He had mixed it up with the sceams. They did ot match the clips they saw - but there was no second without wincing, crying, begging or screaming in the background.

_Hello Emily_, were the last worst that appeared in front of the fixed-image of JJ holding Herny who seemed to be unconcious, _your life is worthless. But it'll pay for your friends family._

"Emily", Garcia, drowned in tears, whispered, not trying to really tell her anything, "Emily."

"I will mend matters", Emily answered, as much under her breath as Garcia, "I swear I will. Doyle was right. I have no other option than to trust him. I was wrong to wait that long. I'll go save them. I'll bring them back to you, I... I'm so sorry..."

She turned around, on the spur of the moment as determined as never before. Henry needed medical attention and so did JJ. They had barely any clothes. It was awefully cold outside even though lunchtime was yet to come. If she would wait much longer... winternights in DC weren't comfortable with thick greatcoats but presumably unbearable with sleepwear in a basement.

She had no choice.

"_No_, Emily!", Garcia snarled and roughtly grabbed the brunette's arm, dragging her back next to her, "if you go now you won't spare them anything! I know him, too. He took you from me. He... he hurt us by hurting you. He's going to revert that principle. That you're turning yourself in to him means you care for them. And that means you'll suffer if he kills them in front of your eyes-"

"I know!", Emily replied yelling, breaking away from Garcia to leave the room, "but tell me _what other options_ there are despite doing the only thing that offers a little but _not _unexisting chance to get them out of there before they'll never be able to recover from what happened today! Tell me and I'll happily do whatever it takes!"

"Emily, please-"

"NO!"

By now, Emily was crying again. She had returned because the burder she had been carrying in France had been too heavy. And now she had to find that things only got harder and harder. Paris had been the new version of an easy life. She had left her old world because it had started to crush her.

Time had made her a broken person.

She kicked the door open to leave the office but couldn't get farther than a few meters. She hadn't looked whether anyone was standing outside and had lowered her head to hide her face from whomever she might meet while rushing out of the building. Her face hit a, with a white shirt and subtle black suit cested, chest. Emily recoiled right away. Her eyes widened as she stared into Rossi's face, the whole rest of the teem behind and next to him.

A wave of memory seemed to knock her down. Before she was able to gain controle of herself again she threw her arms around his neck, weeping bitterly. For that she would die anyway a last moment of not being alone was all she wanted. Only one moment of weakness. Then she could suffer and die being the strong person she would fight for to be.

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><p>"Prentiss?"<p> 


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N:**

Sorry for the long delay!

I was quite busy with family stuff (If someone tells you it's going to be an easy going weekend woth the family at your grandparent's and a casual trip to the restaurant - don't believe any of those words! It's the hardest, most strengh-snapping 'leisure' activity ever and will make you want to be at school!) and school (which might make you want to spend some exhausting time with the family). Aaaargh! Okay - so much for anger management. ;)

I hope you're still reading this.

This chapter is one of those that could safely be rated K. Nothing's really happening. It's another transition. There will be another scene with JJ, Henry and Doyle in the next chapter but I think that'll be one of the last ones (which doesn't mean there won't be any violence left - I'll soon make Emily and Doyle meet each other).

Thanks to crazyobsession101, Wolfybaby and HestiaRue14 for reviewing the last chapter. Also thanks to everyone who put this on Alert of favourites. Or both. You're awesome!

The disclaimer stays the same. & Thomas Gibson's situation on Criminal Minds is getting really, really awkward. The actors of pretty much every show have their contracts for next season by now. He doesn't.

Please **Read & Reviwe!** I love getting reviews!

I hope I'll be able to write the next chapter faster than this one. :)

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><p>She created a few steps of distance between herself and the others to have a better look at them. To maybe do a little better in taking their anger than she could when being too close.<p>

They stared at Emily and Emily stared back.

They waited fer her to say something and she waited for them to start talking.

There were so many questions.

And so many things to explain.

So many things to remain silent about.

"It's her", Reid mumbled, for the first time ever not keeping a smart statistic in readiness. It too was the first time ever she missed this quirk of the genius. It was proof of the change that had taken place. They weren't the same. Or at least they weren't the same as far as it concerned her very self.

Emily forced an awkward smile on her lips. This was all so different from what she had expected. She already hadn't known what to do in her imagination - how was it possible that she could feel even more helpless? How could she have a fight with Doyle if she wasn't capable of facing this?

"Hey."

Her voice was soft, unobtrusive and mournful. It surprized her, was it yet better controlled than she would have bided; being sensible of the obstinate fight and the wrought-up emotions inside her.

"How are you doing?", she gingerly asked as nobody seemed to make a sound.

"Well, how do you _think_ we are, Emily?", Morgan spat, turning around to leave. For a moment Emily thought of following him, trying to do whatever it would take to make him return. But she stayed. She could not run away from everyone else. She owed them a lot. At least an explanation. If not more than she'd ever be able to give back.

"Could we start searching for JJ now?", Reid asked, his voice being colder than she remembered it and they left to the conference room. She followed them at a distance. There wouldn't be time to break it again. In probably less than a day she would sign her own death's warrant. Maybe she would die in about a week or two, this was impossible to tell.

But no matter how long it would take - there wouldn't be enough time left to heal the old sores that she had just reopened. She wouldn't die as a loved one.

* * *

><p>"So what did you get?", Hotch asked, looking at Emily and Garcia.<p>

They all sat around the table, the wretchedly little information they had in terms of copys in front of them. Garcia had left the room when they had watched the video -twice- and Emily had just called her back. She could understand that the other woman refused to watch it again and if she hadn't been too close to being used to see this kind of stuff she wouldn't have been able to take it another time either.

The one positif effect the video had had was that everyone seemed to concentrate on the case only - and not so much on Emily. Morgan had returned and even though she felt everyone's warily, assessing glances Emily was relieved that she wouldn't have to talk to them in personal issues now. She wasn't dead - that was a fact. That JJ and Henry were still alive wasn't for sure though.

"You saw everything. It's... not a lot. I came back a week ago. I called JJ. She met me at a hostel yesterday night. We talked for quite a while and she left around ten. The next morning I got a call. It was Henry telling me that they had been kidnapped and that they would be free if I turned myself in to Doyle. I came here because I need your help to do this. I can't save their lifes all by myself."

"Why do you think so?", Rossi interposed.

"He will not let them walk away. He'll kill them, even though he'll have me. You need to save them."

"Were there any hints on where he keeps them in the video?"

"Not that we noticed. It seems to be a basement but as long as we can't narrow that down it's not a valuable information."

"I couldn't trace the call either", Garcia explained, her voice still a little shaky as she hadn't fully recovered from watching Doyle's video composition yet, "and I think I'm still not sure how this is possible. There are only very few cellular phones that aren't tracable like those used by US Marshalls, that's how Foyet... sorry. I bet Obama has one, too but I couldn't even get his cell number, even though I would love to tell him how cute I think Bo is... However, only a few people in a few positions get a cell like that. The only possibility I can think of is that JJ either worked at some super special secret stuff or, more likely, that she simply was in a high-ranking position before she came back to the BAU that would have given people reason to threat her or anything and she just kept the phone after she left. I was only wondering whether Doyle knew this. I think he did. He is too smart - he would have hung up earlier if he hadn't knows this wouldn't be an issue."

"Why is he hurting them?" The question was asked by Reid. His voice was almost too quiet to hear. "He doesn't have to do this. What is there JJ could tell him?"

"She was the one who helped me go to Paris", Emily said; it was still hard for her to get her voice to not break down - to confess her won weakness to everyone around, "and she knew where I stayed so maybe he had hoped he could get her to tell him where I was right after the abduction and only then decided to have Henry call me. But... I'm pretty sure he does it to put more pressure on me. They both need medical attention and I can't lose much more time but right now... if I go now they'll need nothing but a coroner."

For a moment they sat in silence and Emily took the chance to look again on how they were looking at her. It didn't take a profiler to tell that Morgan and Reid would certaily be the ones whom she would have the most problems with... premised she would live long enough to even have problems one last time. Hotch appeared to be as upstaged as usual. She knew he felt _something_ but he knew to hide. His ability to strictly set priorities was admirable. Maybe he would think about her real last living day with the BAU at a later date. When JJ and Henry would be safe.

"We won't be enough Agents to do this", he said, his voice telling as much as his face, "we're going to need all the help we can get. All of you are taking a short break and I'll call Strauss. She needs to know everything... JJ is the FBI. She saved Strauss' ass more than once in front of the camera. I'm sure she'll do everything but... a little reminder will get us some more backup."

Emily left the room before anyone else did, hoping that nobody would follow her.

* * *

><p>Emily heared Reid approaching but pretended to be impervious to his attendance.<p>

He sat down on the chair next to her. She didn't remember the distance between them to be that perceptible. She took a drink of coffee and he did the same, waiting for her to say something. Hoping that Reid would start talking if he realized Emily wouldn't be the one to begin a conversation, she tried to remaine silent, too. But after all she was the one who left. The hurt of her friends was a constant reminder on what she had thought for like a million times since the latest events had taken place - this was all her fault. And it really wasn't Reid's turn to start talking. He made the first move by sitting with her and this had already been more than she could have asked for.

"Hey Reid, how are ya?", were the first words that came up to her mind and when she realized that couldn't have started worse it was already too late.

"I think Morgan verbalized it quite precisely", Reid snapped and swallowed angrily another gulp of coffee, "how do you _think_ we are?"

"This wasn't what I wanted to-", Emily tried to explain herself but it was too late for any damage containment.

"Our friend got kidnapped because you are not dead!", he interrupted, spitting his angry words onto Emily like burning knifes, "Right after we were pretty battered when dealing with your _death_. My godson got beaten up by a sick-minded sadist terrorist whom we didn't expect to hurt any of us after your... but it was fake. It was a lie. _Safety_ was the lie. _Hope _was a lie and now you're here and expect us to just... take what happened as the past? To not be angry? To be happy you're alive? Why... how do you _think_ the last weeks were? Fun? Relaxed? Guess what, Emily - they weren't!"

"Reid, I-", Emily stammered, but his blame echoed in her head and kept her from concentrating.

_Our friend got kidnapped because you are not dead!_

"I do not expect you to not be angry."

"So for once, I agree with you."

"I meant to ask you about... ehm, I don't know if I still am a person who is allowed to ask but... I was worried about the headaches you had. Are they still as bad or... did they get better?"

He looked at her and seemed to suddenly be mute. Emily couldn't tell what he was thinking. She didn't even see whether he was angry at her for asking, surprized or simply not caring.

"Sorry", she mumbled, "it's none of my business any longer if you don't want it to be. I'll just... sorry."

"No, it's... it's fine. They disappeared about two weeks after your, ehm, _the _funeral."

His voice shook a little, which Emily interpreted as a sign of the confusion or anger he probably felt. The scare of what else might happen to JJ and Henry. The insecurity of having something back and the knowledge that it would be lost all over agin.

"Is this a good sign concerning your... family background?"

"You mean if they could still be a sign of scizophernia? I don't know. I saw some doctors about it but they can't really tell me anything either. They guess it was a stress reaction."

"I hope they aren't following me", Emily said half ironically, smiling at the man who had just been angry at her but yet seemed to be the kind, worried person she had known a short but still too long time ago, "maybe they'll just stay away."

He responed with a slight smile.

"Maybe."

For a couple of peaceful that felt like balm for their souls they sat next to each other in silence, drinking their bitter coffees, thinking about nothing. When she saw Hotch recurring from Strauss' office Emily stood up to return to the conference room.

"We should go back and hurry to find a method of safe exchange", Emily saied, giving Reid the most enthusiastic look she was capable of. She threw her emptied foam cup through the room and perfectly stroke a trash can. Reid walked over to the same one, rather slow and thoguhtful.

"Emily? I, ehm... I think I just need to...", Reid hung about, not sure how to put what he actually wanted to say. The prompting, temporisind expression on Emily's face that was all he could concentrate on didn't make it any easier for him to get his words out.

"What is it, Reid?"

"I think you need to know that we all are angry", he finally sputtered, "and that you're... alive is hard for us to face because it kinda is what we are hoping for every thime we lose someone. Ýou betrayed us, even though you didn't mean to offend us. We know that. And we're angry because you hurt us by dying. Not because you are alive."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

Btw - I came to notice that I have quite some spelling errors in this story.

Like "He opened to doop and stepped ut into the coridor".

Most are typos but I'm always trying my best concerning grammar and diction. Eventually I'll read through the whole story again and try to correct everything but I'm not sure when I'll have time to do this.


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N:**

Hey there,

this chapter is really, really short and not really what I had aimed for. I was quite busy (last few test to be taken, still birthday stuff to do, reunion with some friends who spent a year in the US aso... it's drving me crazy, especially since I'm celebrating because everyone was like "oh no, you can't just ignore your 18th" -.-). So I uploaded what I got so far, it's not revised yet. Like I said there would be a Doyle/ JJ scene in this chapter but there isn't one. I just began writing it and got like... woah, the glorious amount of six words total!

Thanks to blackandblueangel, HestiaRue14 and lazerwolf314 for reviewing the last chapter & (lazerwolf314) the offer to beta this! This would be most amazing! I don't really know how beta-reading works yet. xD

The disclaimer stays the same. But seriously - isn't that stupid? Why would I write fanfiction if I would own the show?

I think "Pens for Kristen" had still not reached its closing date. It#s sending funny pens to the owner (or some po box) of the CM blogspot and then they'll pick some of the pens and Kristen Vangsness will use them in the show.

& (so not CM related) if you want to save Americas Most Wanted you can trend #SaveAmericasMostWanted on twitter. i can't get it out of my head since Pauley Perette posted it like a bazillion of times even though I think this show is stupid and it's foremost purpose was making koney with some real blood and crime. hm... whatever.

Aber the scientific stuff... I have no idea whether you can use a SEM to photogrph . :)

So... I hope you'll enjoy this chapter though!

Please **Review, review, review, review...** 'nough said. ;D

* * *

><p>Time seemd to stand still.<p>

JJ had no idea how long Henry and her had been alone but it felt as if it'd been way too long. Not that she wished for her tomremnot to come back but because she felt Herny getting colder and colder in her arms. She gently rubbed his back and arms, holding him as tight to herself as possible - trying to give him every bit or wormth she had. Which was riddiculously little.

She looked up into the camera. The right small light told her that it still was on and she knew that Doyle had probably send a video of her and Henry to Emily. He had her number and for the first time she regrettet having a safe cell phone.

Finally she let her despiration win. She was already weak and obviously afraid - if not of her own life she definitly feared that Henry might not make it. Doyle would very likely use what she was about to do in some way against the BAU team and herself but she didn't mind any longer. If this was how it would be supposed to be she would let it take its way. If she was supposed to break and make everyone else break, too - fine. Henry needed to live. It was all that mattered to her.

"Emily?", she whispered while focussing on where she assumed the lens of the camera was, "I don't know if you'll see this but I just... I never wanted this to happen, Emily. I'm so sorry I- ...I should have been more careful. Somehow. Maybe things would have turned out fine then and not... not..."

Her voice was interrupteb by sobs. JJ squeezed henry's hand, hoping he might respond this time. As he didn't, again, her sobs became heavier and for a couple of minutes she concentrated on taking deep, consistend breaths to calm down again.

"Really, Emily, I wanted it to be different and not like... that. And if it would only be me I wouldn't come to you with entreaty like that. You know I could handle being here with Doyle. I really could, I wouldn't even be afraid. But Henry's here, too. He is afraid and I am, too. And... he is too young. So... I... I don't know how to say... you can save us, Emily. I would never ever demand of anyone to die for me but... I beg you to come save my little boy! I beg you, Em, _please_!"

After she finished the room seemed to be even colder than before. The silence left seemed to be painful as JJ knew that she had just sentenced her friend to death. Emily was a good person and more than that - she felt guilty. If she hadn't already been determined to do what Doyle had demanded for -which was more than only possible- she would without a doubt turn herself in now. He would send her the video. No matter how much physical pain he could inflict to his two hostages - what she just said, her plea to Emily to die would always be his strongest weapon,

JJ had just made Emily kill herself, that she knew for sure, and she felt dirty.

And yet she couldn't supress hope.

* * *

><p>"Hey Morgan?"<p>

He didn't bother answering or at least turning around. He leaned against the wall next to the conference room and read in one of Reid's scientific magazines. He kept his eyes focused on the picture of a scanning electron microscope picture of EHEC and pretended to read the article about it. Emily wondered whether he had taken one of those magazines because he wanted to avoid talking to hear right away or if he only wanted to keep his mind off heavier things in general.

The case hand't developed at all and Hotch had went to Strauss' office again, requesting more support even though they didn't need any. He did it for the simple purpose of doing something. Right now it made no difference whether they were two, twenty or two hundred people.

So Emily had decided to use the time and at least try cleaning up the mess she had made.

"Morgan, please - do you have a second?"

As he didn't respond to Emily's addressing again she gently touched his shoulder. He quickly armed her hand away and spun around, glancing in her with anger and rejection.

"_What_ du you want?", he hissed, taking a step back from her.

"I think you know this pretty darn well!", Emily snapped back, "so don't pretend to be more of a jerk-off than you actually are, duh!"

"Yeah, that's a great way to convince me to speak with you."

"Concidering what mood you're in right now I'm not even sure if I actually _want_ to talk to you!"

"Or really? Great, then just leave and stop vexing me!"

"I would do exactly this withing seconds if circumstances wouldn't make this an impossible thing."

"I don't see the impossibility in there, Emily, and I don't see the need _to talk_ either."

"Well, I do."

"You know when I would have had plenty of time to talk? One and a half month a- but, _oh_, wait. Forgot I was wasting a whole day at the fake funeral of some _genius_ that tried to protect us but wasn't even able to follow through with it!"

"Look, I know I screwed up-"

"Big time, Em, big time!"

"-and I want to apologize-"

"You want? Woooah - now I feel better. A simple _sorry_ can achieve _so_ much."

It took the last bit of controle she had left. The conversation hadn't taken the way she had hoped for at all but it seemed to only get worse. But Emily had no time for this. If she had lived for more than a day or so in freedom she would have taken some more time to earn back Morgan's friendship by being kind and understanding. Right now the only chance she had was trying to get it back in a rough way. She'd either succeed or totally fail.

She missed what she had had and she wanted it back. It was worth it.

"Morgan, would you please stop being sarcastic all the time? I am _seriously _trying to iron things out before my death and if you don't want to talk you could at least shut up and listen to what I have to tell you! It is not that hard and neither is it too much to ask for, now is it?"

Morgan eyeballed her for a bit and even though his expression was filled wiht obvious anger Emily noticed the smile he supressed. She sighted. First step taken. Only like a million or so left.

"Then what is it you want to say?"

"It, ehm... it's pretty much what I told Garcia and Reid, too. I'm sorry but you need to know that hurting anyone was not my intention."

"Why did you come back?"

She paused, not sure what to say. She had hurried to cover her throat again after Garcia had seen what had been a supposed to stay a secret until she died.

"I- ...I couldn't take it. My french sucks. My fake ID name sucked. My only friend was the caricature of herself and kept chatting about the upper class' sex life. I was far from home. It was the wrong place for me to stay."

"So this is the right one?"

This time his question was free of the irony and sarcasm that had made Emily so angry before.

"Yes, it is. Even though I had hopef for things to take a... better way."

"You don't regret coming back?"

"If there is one thing I regret it's leaving. Like it said - Paris was the wrong place. I do not belong there and if it means ending up with a sadist creep an a basement... well, it's better than eating frog legs."

She smiled and he did, too.

"So, ehm... are we cool?", she hesitatingly asked but as his expression changed again Emily's heart sank to her boots. She turned around to go get some water and Morgan narrpwed his eyes to slits as he started at another picture in the magazine.

"You know - I might not have a lot of time left but as long as I am here I won't stop trying."

"Why?"

"Because you are my friend and you are my partner."

She smiled again and walked away, leaving Morgan behind.


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N:**

Welcome to the next chapter! Sorry or the long delay again. What can I say? I'm still kinda busy. Always thought that the end of the school year is the most relaxed part but then all this crap is coming up and there isn't real work to do but somehow there'syet no time left.

Thanks to HestiaRue14 and blackandblueangel for **reviewing** the last chapter & to everyone who put this on alert or listed it as a fav story. I hope that some of those who originally alterted this story are still reading it. The statistics say so but since I'm quite a lazy updater... however.

The disclaimer is depressing. I don't own anything. Which is sad. But maybe the show will be canceled in a few years (even though I don't hope so) and someone will sell the rights on it in a garage sale. And then I'll be there, buying it for a dollar or two.

And again there's a short warning just in case someone has a (really) weak stomach. There's some slight torture in here, but not a lot and the scene only makes a limited amout of sense.

Yet I hope you'll enjoy reading this!

I'm happy about **every review I get!**

* * *

><p>"Good morning, Jennifer", Doyle wispered as he entered the room. The door made a little noise that seemed to be loud and disturbing, since it still was the loudest sound in the room. JJ felt her heartbeat stop for a split second and heared her blood in her ears.<p>

"Please", she begged under her breath while she hated herself for doing it "he needs a doctor. Help him and keep me. I'll be enough!"

"Emily still isn't here, is she?"

"She will", JJ said and her voice suddenly gained confidence, "and you know it."

"Do I, Jennifer?"

"Why, that's not even a smart question. I already answered it. I'm not gonna do it again."

Doyle smiled brightly.

"You are right, I do. But I guess it won't hurt anyone to... stress what I want her to do, right? Well, expect you two, of course."

JJ's face turned pale at his words. She tried to flinch from him but beside Henry's weight pressing her to the ground she already leaned against the wall with her back and the pain would have been unbearable anyway.

"Don't you dare touch him!", she hissed, clinging to her son with all her energy, "he needs medical attention. If he dies your last chance of getting out of this alive is gone!"

"That's not my plan in the first place. Why would I care?"

"You had a son of Henry's age, too. So _please_ don't hurt the one I love just the way you loved Deklan!"

Usin his son's name was like pulling a gun's trigger. Within seconds he approached to JJ and just started kicking her, losing all kind of control. She tried to hold a scream back for as long as possible, heavy-hearted but not a second too early pushing Henry away from herself and out of her assailant's reach.

Finally he grabbed her by the shoulders, picked her up and recklessly pressed her against the cold wall, staring at her with eyes that were cold as ice.

Tears streamed down her face but the simple fact that he didn't hurt her for at least a few seconds was enough to give JJ the strengh of creating a scornful smile in her lips.

What just had happened was an improvement, even though Doyle didn't seem to notice. He had threatened to hurt Henry, too but instead she had made him so angry that he had forgotten about her son. JJ was the one he was mad at now - and she intended to keep it that way. Henry and her were leverage - leverage that he wouldn't hesitate to get rid of. If she made him agry it would be something personal to him. She would make him hate her and she would be willing to take all his hate. It would make him forget or at least not care Henry was there. It would not get Henry the help he needed but it would prevent him from further harm. It left time for a miracle to happen.

"Now _somebody_ need to work on his anger controle issues", she mocked and winced as she realized talking hurt. Noticing Doyle's grin JJ quickly rebuilded her own smile and spat a mouthful of blood in his face, "you know - I think red really flatters you. Makes you look more like a man and less like a big, cowardly failure of a wannabe-father."

She didn't even had to think about the words but the risky, probably even deadly, insult let her pride rise in her inside. JJ felt a wave of energy and defiance surge in her chest, a higher dose of adrenaline ran through her venes and maybe even a little bit of serotonine. She barely felt any pain as Doyle slammed her against the basement's wall. Her head connected to the stones and her vision became blurry but she didn't even bother. He rouchgly pulled JJ towards him again, only to hit her against the wall another time. Again his movements were too fast and powerful for her to stand upon her defense or to at least keep her head from crashing into the mural.

"Now how do you like that?", he spat and released her from his grip. She tried to stand for not more than a couple of seconds. Her head spun as never before and felt like it was about to explode every second. Not minding that she might just worsen all her injuries JJ let herself collapse onto the ground without trying to break her fall.

Being so close to Henry reminded her of her plan. She couldn't give up now. If he would think she was physically broken he would continue to take his revenge mentally - which ment he would raise a hand against her son. She took a few deep, painful breaths and slowly started on getting herself back in position - groaning and whimpering scrolling to her back, slowly trying to sit up, supporting herself against the wall and then, which seemed to be the hardest part, she rose her leaden head and gave him the bright, ironic smile she was used to.

"Sorry, didn't know they allowed gutless sissies to use the gym from time to time to earn some self-respect. See - that's what I respect America for. We're too nice to everyone, even out terrorists are allowed to feel strong at some time of the day. Wasn't the case in lovely Korea, I guess?"

"Don't you dare-"

"Dare _what?_ Now seriously, you're righting for an independant Irealand that is free from Great Britain. We all understand this - I wouldn't exactly dream of being citizen of a nation that has mint-pie and all that gross stuff either. North Korea should've been fun, right? So independent from the South... that's a man's thing, isn't it?"

She was aware that she didn't really make sense but it wasn't about logical argumentation. Deklan and his time in Korea. His son and the injustice that happened to him - she culdn't think of a better way to keep him angry.

But to her shock and surprize Doyle turned around to leave, not even threatening to assult her again.

"Wait!", JJ called as he opened the door. She should have been happy about him leaving but is ease caused her a stir "where are you going?"

"_You_ seem to be quite a fan of the asian culture", he sung in a sweet, assumed voice. A cold shiver ran down her spinal. She didn't know what he was gping to do but she had screwed up. Somehow she had just made everything worse.

"Just in case you didn't notice - I'm blonde, happily married, own a house, am with the FBI... I basically _am_ the american dream. Call me _Columbia_ if you'd like to."

"But I still have a card up my sleeve. Be surprized. You may take a short nap. Get some rest. We'll have some fun later, I promise... it's going to be a whole new experience, Jennifer. A whole new experience."

* * *

><p>"Hey, Hotch? A moment, please?"<p>

Her boss, or well - _ex_ boss, actually- paused and turned around, lookign at her with his usual, emotionfree stare. Emily approached him quickly. She needed to talk to him in personal before facing everyone back in the conference room.

"Prentiss, I understand why you did what you did", he stated matter-of-factly, before she could open her mouth, "I understand the problems of Reid and Morgan, too but you really don't need to explain anything to me. I respect your decision and I respect that JJ helped you with it. It might not have been the smartest one but you had good reasons. YOu could have done worse things."

Emily's jaw dropped open and an awkward smile twitched over her face.

"Oh, that's... ehm, that's cool", she stammered, twisting her fingers in front of her abdomen, "but... now don't think I didn't care about what you think about... things, Hotch, but that's not why I wanted to talk to you."

He raised his eyebrows.

"Really?"

"Really."

"Then what _do _you want to talk about?", he asked, not fully hiding that she had indeed surprized him.

"Ehm... you know why I'm here, right?"

"To save JJ and Henry. To get them back."

"Have a plan yet?"

A shade of frustration glimmered in Hotch's eyes, revealing that what was happening drained of his strength more than he let show.

"There aren't many good ones."

"I have one. But you won't like it. Maybe. Even though it's why I called on you guys."

"I hear?"

"It's about Doyle's original demand. He wants me-"

"We cannot do this", he interrupted her, his voice being professional as he refused steadfasty to do something like Emily suggested, "The FBI doesn't exchange one agent for another one. We won't just let you walk off to die - forget about it!"

"Well, that's what the FBI does. But _I_ want to exchange one _civilian_-"

"You know trading a civilian would be even less of an option, right? Not to mention a _friend_."

"-then an _ex Agent_ for a wonderful friend and her little son. Hotch, this is the only basis to work with and I don't know how much you took that in account. Every other plan will fail. But I think I have one by now and it might even be a feasible one!"

Hotch sighted and nodded, even though he wasn't convinced at all.

"How would your plan work?"

"It's quite easy. I... maybe swallow a GPS chip or something and let Doyle take me. If he really wants to make me watch how he kills JJ and Henry he'll bring me to where they are. You can trak the way he goes and then you can come save them. As soon as a SWAT team enters the building where he keeps them he'll flee with me. We both know that I'm the one this is about and... well, you need to be fast. Let him walk off with me, save JJ and Henry and..."

"If you are willing to take this risk this actually is a good plan", Hotch assessed, nodding his agreement, "I have to admit I expected you to come up with a really bad idea but... we'll be able to save them and to save you. Which is a good plan. Seriously."

Emily paused for a few seconds, hesitating to request one last thing.

"Is there anything else, Prentiss?"

"Yeah, it's... it's just-", she began, but her voice broke before she could really begin to talk. She took a deep breath, knowing that as soon as she said it she couldn't take it back. If she said it, it was final.

"Technically you could come after me if I have GPS in my digestive tract", she explained in bungling faked ease, affecting a laugher, "but... please don't do this, Hotch. I do not wish to be saved. If you do this... he might get away again. And he'll come back and you'll defeat him and then he'll just return. Again and again and again. He might hurt Reid next time. Or Garcia. Or you or Rpssi or Ashley or some random passanger he met on the streets just because he _knows _that I could not live with the guilt of having anyone suffer just 'cause he is mad at me. If you let him kill me... it's all gonna be over. All of you're gonna be safe and I will be much better, too."

Hotch seemed to hesitantly reconsider Emily's suggestion and then turned around to enter the conference room. She hurried to follow him before he opened its door.

"So what do you think, Hotch?"

He shrugged.

"Let's inform them of what you want."


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N:**

Thanks to smg55, blackandblueangel and HestiaRue14 for the nice reviews to the last chapter. They kinda made my day!

The disclaimer stays the same.

& just in case you don't know it yet: **Thomas Gibson signed a contract for season 7!** CBS isn't as insane as expected. :D

This chapter is quite short (about 1,500 words). It's more like a transition. I'm planning to get some movement into the story. But you have to wait for the next chapter for that.

I hope you'll enjoy it through!

* * *

><p>"You want do turn yourself in?", Reid panted while Garcia breathed in sharply. Rossi nodded slightly, not looking too surprized and Morgan seemed to not be as shocked either. Hotch stood behind Emily, not saying a word. She had to do this by herself.<p>

"That's what I said all the time. I told you. All of you."

"Just to clarify... are you serious about that? It's nothing to gag about, you know."

"I wouldn't. Ever. This is exactly what I want and-"

"You don't even _want_ to survive?", Reid interrupted in an angry voice, "you want to die _again_?"

"No, no. That's not what-"

"It's not? Than what _do_ you want, Emily?"

"I-", she began stummering and realized that the strength to follow through explaining everything honestly to them was just about to vanish again, "I need... may I just have a few seconds to think about my answer?"

Emily pulled one of the bureau chairs back from the large round table and sat down on it, not even able to sit up as straight and energetic as she wished. Instead she sunk down and looked like a picture of misery. Wordlessly Rossi tossed a glass of water over to her and she slowly took a drink from it.

"You feeling like you can go on, hon?", Garcia asked susurrantly, gently touching her friend's shoulder. Emily nodded and coughed slightly.

"Yes, of course. Sorry about that."

"It's alright. Just take your time", the blonde soothed.

"I... didn't really expect this to be that hard. I thought you'd be okay with it."

"With you dying?"

Again, Reid was the one to ask the questions. The whole situation left Garcia pretty much helpless and overwhealmed while Hotch knew everything he had to know and maybe Rossi did too, but who could ever be sure of that? Ashley sat at the other side of the table, quietly observing the siuation. Emily stared at her as she tried to gain back the strenght she needed and the younger agent started to fidget slightly as she tried to shirk from the look.

"I know I was wrong. But I was already dead and you love JJ and Henry and he's your and Garcia's godson and everything. And it's way better to let the one die who is rather okay with that than the two people who are supposed to live long happy lifes!"

"We care about your life, too", Rossi interposed rather matter-of-factly.

"I'm not suggesting that you don't. But I know you can't make the decision whom you want to survive and whom you'd rather see dying. So I'm arriving at the decision. I _need_ to be the one to die. Doyle will kill me and everything will be just fine. If I survive it'll be hell. But my death will bring nothing but peace and that's what y'all need, finally."

She sighted deeply. Nobody attempted to respond to her words.

"You don't have to agree with me and you don't really have to _support_ my decision either. The only thing I'm asking for is that you save JJ and Henry. You don't have to do anything further. Just do... you know, nothing at all."

"We are supposed to just let you die."

Rossi's statement had the same tone he had talked in before. He seemed to not try to question her motives but to only get an exact idea of the current situation before passing his own verdict on the dilemma they were in.

"No... what you are supposed to do is to _save_ two lifes. I just explained my whole point to you. It's easy, it's rational and it's the only chance we have. Take it. Do it for them. And I would be grateful if you'd do it for me, too."

"You know we have to think about it."

"I don't think you have to. As I said... my life isn't your decision."

None of them gave her an answer. They stared at her, speachlessly realizing that she was being seriousa, that she really planned to die. This wasn't just a brave but woolly idea. It was going to happen and appearently there wasn't anything to stop her from doing it.

"Please", Emily whispered and gulped back a sob, "will you let me die for them?"

The following silence was nerve-splitting. She listened to nothing but her own breath which was hard to keep calm and steady.

"If this is what you wish it's what we'll do."

* * *

><p>She had left the room after trying to justify herself to the rest of the team. It had been exhausting and far more stressful than she had thought. Emily already had to fight with the despite she nourished against herself. The silent reproach everyone else seemed to bring on her was a burden that was even harder to deal with. Again, as it had occurred so many times during this day, the heavy weight on her shoulders gained in heaviness.<p>

"Hey, Prentiss!"

As she heared Morgan call for her, Emily fastered her pace. She hadn't really had a destination but aimed at the women's restroom where he could not follow her to.

"Come on, Emily, you just wanted to talk to me so why don't you take that chance now?"

Emily spun around and Morgan halted immediately.

"Remember when I told you I'm secretly a nerd? I'm a complex character and guess what - not only am I a nerd, I'm even more of a whimp and so not in the mood to try hiding it right now!"

She didn't give Morgan time to answer but continued her way to the restrooms. Morgan remained behind for a couple of seconds but then quickly caught up to Emily.

"I don't think you're weak, Prentiss-"

"Then _why_ are you here talking to me?"

"You can't just walk off to die again!"

"Why would you even care?"

"Because... hey, that's not fair. I already told you I'n proud of you and you can't just make me repeat it. That's like fishing for compliments - _not_ as cool as you might hope."

Emily couldn't help it. An honest smile slashed over her face and she relaxed a bit, took a deep breath and, all in a sudden, decided that it was indeed a good moment to face Morgan again.

"It's nice to know that you still don't wish I'm dead, even though I made you think so."

"Welcome", he smiled, "you know, I'll never be _not_ unhappy to see you... dead. Or in any way harmed."

"I'm serious, Morgan. It's good to know.""And so am I."

"Ehm... I'm sorry for hurting you then, I guess."

"It'll be easy to avoid that."

"So what do you want?"

"Talk."

"Oh no, are you sreious?", she mocked, rolling her eyes, her voice changing to a sarcastic tone, "I was _so _sure you'd come to finally give me that mac 'n cheese recipe of yours that I've been promised for like a year and then would ask me to make out for a while... Gosh, I'm not that stupid, Morgan."

"Hey, calm down, I'm trying to have a conversation here, alright?"

"Sorry. I know I told you I wanted to talk", Emily sighted, "but you might have noticed that I'm not exactly in the mood for any kind of deep talking right now. Tell me what you think you have to tell me in... lets say three phrases or so? Please... I'm just... never mind."

"Okay, we have a deal then. I want JJ and Herny back. I think your plan isn't generally bad but don't think any of us can lose you again. I want you to allow us to come save you after we saved the others."

She blinked as she tried to understand what he had said.

"You're asking for my permission?"

"Yes, I do. I can not guarantee that I'll fully respect it if you're denying ít now but... I really, really need to hear you say it. Do you want to die, Emily? Do you _wish_ to be dead _right now?"_

* * *

><p>"Henry? Henry honey, please wake up! Mommy's missing you, sweetie... please; please come back."<p>

The boy in her arms didn't respond to her words. Maybe his breathing rate became slower but JJ couldn't be sure. What she was sure of was that his lips, originally in´niot more than a light shade of blue, became darker - the oxigen in his blood lesser and ergo all the life inside of him...

...lesser.


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N:**

Ver, very, very (time a million) "Thank you"s to HestiaRue14 and smg55 for your most amazing reviews to the last chapter! I read them Friday night/ Saturday morning and they made me _so_ happy (I felt flattered). I'm glad you like the plot & my way of writing.

Sooooo... I had some unexpected spare time and I started to totally love writing this story. That's why this chapter is on earlier than usual but I think it'll take some more time to get the 18th up (being of legal age sucks... it's been almost two weeks and I already have to fight up a hillbattle with those bureaucrats working at my bank and uínsurance company. How lovely).

btw... I guess I'm the only one who didn't get at all that JJ told Hotch the truth about Emily in the end of "Lauren". Everyone else seems to have noticed but it's official and everything... however. Just needed to give that the deep ten. xD

I hope you enjoy! Don't hesitate to leave a **review!** (it's amazing how many read this accordning to the story stats. So it you happen to be one of those who always read but never review... it'd be a great time for a change of habit!)

I still do not own the show. But a girld can dream, right? ;)

* * *

><p>"<em>I beg you, Em, please.<em>"

Doyle's second MMS hadn't been expected by any member of the team but left them equally terrified. At first they had been relieved that the video he sended didn't contain any kind of music not did it include horrific pictures of torture and fear. But soon it had become cleare to them that what they witnessed this time was worse. JJ's plea to save Henry was filled with so much more violence, pain and horror than her screams in the first video. And the feelings it triggered in Emily were of much more guilt and sense of responsibility than before.

_I am late._

It was all she could think about. She took too much time. She shouldn't be sitting here, at the round table in the conference room. She shouldn't be seeing them on a high definition flat screen. She shouldn't feel no pain, she shouldn't be just worried... she was wrong. She should be at their place. She should feel what they felt. She should be the one suffering while they were supposed to be the safe and happy ones.

She was late.

And if she wasn't _too_ late she could die a quiet happy death.

* * *

><p>Emily's hands shook as she slowly set her index to the green key of her cell and rose it to her ear. The dial tone seemed to be more annoying, piercing and slower than ever, even though she knew Doyle would probably answer to her call within seconds. She imagined him sitting up straight on a chair in front of a side table where JJ's cell lay on, slobber dripping out of his mouth while he hungrily waited for her to offer herself to him. The thought was amusing and scaring her at the same time. As much as she liked to think of Ian Doyle as a contemptible, base-souled scumbag who tried to overcome mental weakness with physical violence - <em>she <em>had been the one sending him through hell. _She _had stolen his son and created a profile that had brought him to North Korea. And _he _had survived all the things they did to him without losing his mind, without letting them break his volition.

Maybe, after all, Doyle wasn't that weak and Emily wasn't that good.

"_I've been waiting for you to call, Emily_", he greeted her in an earnest voice that he had banned almost every bit of amusement he fel fromt, "_to be honest - I didn't thought a good friend, like you are one to my lovely Jennifer and her adorable son here, would let me wait as long as you did. So, Em, I guess we'll just hurry discussing business. Now... What's your offer?_"

"I hear you decided to finally stop with all that _Lauren_ thing?", Emily asked before she could gulp the question. At the same time she felt that someone, even though she wasn't paying enough of attention to her direct surrounding to notice from whom it was, thrusted a sticky note into her hand.

_Focus on getting all the information. Annoying him will bring you nothing but harmful delay._

For only the piece of a second Emily completely lost her mind to the scrawled handwriting. She couldn't identify whos it was. She remembered Hotch's "F"s to be sharper and not as short and cury, the tittle was almost a full circle -which was how Garcia used to shape her characters- but the other letters didn't look like hers. They were much siraighter and partly merging with each other. Concerning Rossi's notes... if it'd be one of his she wouldn't have been able to read this while Reid's were softer and in general smaller than the one she stared at.

Emily sighted and shrugged as she suddenly felt a hand tapping her shoulder. With only a small gesture Ashley tried to signify she had to go on and couldn't sight while having a psycho on the phone.

"_Indeed, _Emily_, I decided it was easier to just... let go of what happened in the past. I see a bright future coming and that's what she should focus on, now shouldn't we?_"

Again she felt like she was stuck. Coughting lightly Emily tried to dispel the lump in her throat but when she opened her mouth to say that one, significant word she had fought for just about an hour ago she wasn't able to make a sound.

A second sticky note made its way to her hand.

_It's now or never. You said you want to save them. DO IT NOW!_

Scarp, thin bangs, again with small circles underneath them that somehow looked rash and angry, too.

"Yes, we should. I offer to meet you at a place of your choice. I will be there without any kind of backup - no agents, cops, bugs or whatever else you can think of."

"_I have to admit this is something worth concidering-_"

"I have two conditions, though", Emily interrupted him, now hurrying to at least bring up the point he would violate anyway, "first: I want to _see_ that my friends are alive. They will be at the place you choose. I will not openly approach this place and if I do not see them there I'll call not only the FBI but every single man of every single authority I've worked with in my entire carreer and even though this means that you will kill your hostages they will kill you and your people... slowly and vengeful. They will make you wish to be back in Korea."

"_Interesting threat to impose, Em. I see you're willing to take quite some risks there, not only concerning your own wellbeing... But I agree. They will be there and you will see them until... you know, the both of us are gonna take some time off. We have to stop being bothered by everyday's life at _some_ time of the day._" He chuckled an ambiguous chuckle that send a shiver down her spinal. "_So after I agreed to your first condition - what's the second one you mentioned?_"

"It's just you, me and maximally two more of your men. As soon as I arrive and hand myself over to you I want to call 911 personally to get JJ and Herny an ambulance. We can take off after that and they will get help while we are alone. Would you be alright with this?"

"_How can I be sure you won't overwhealm me if there are so little men of mine?_", he questioned, just as she had expected. He saw his plan getting in danger and attempted to protect it.

"Oh please, _Ian_, you have two friends of mine within your power - do you really think I'm gonna pull a stunt and risk their lifes just because I want to fight a little? Sometimes such a plain thing as love makes people as mild as a dove. Last time you assumed my friends were meaningless to me but by now you know better. If I'm turning myself in to save them - why would I get _them _and myself killed by fighting?"

"_You are reasonable but not trustworthy._"

"Neither are you."

For a moment the line was filled up with dead silence. Emily felt her heartrate accelerate as she waited for Doyle to either agree or disagree. He would most likely not even bother to let her call any number, especially not 911, but yet she couldn't supress the hope that everything might not take the long, hard and risky way they would prepare for. Some say _wonders will never cease_ and believing in those words was her best chance.

"_I accept all of your conditions so far._"

"Then we have a deal?"

"_We have. In two hours you will stand in front of the White House. This should be a place public enough to make you feel save. Will not overwhealm you yet but one of my men will observe and I will call you there to give you further information. You won't need a car - we'll leadn´you to another location where a vehicle is provided for you. If we see that anyone is following you, JJ and Henry are dead. Understand?_"

Emily swallowed hard and only nodded before she reminded herself he wasn't standing in front of her.

"Totally."

"_I'm looking forward to see you again."_

Emily snorted shortly and was ashamed to realize that it was an outburst due to panic more than due to actual amusement or irony.

"So do I", she scoffed, forcing her voice to sound sarcastic and calm, "so do I."

The dial tone violently brought her back into the real world. She turned around to look at all the faces of those who had followed the conversation between Doyle and herself. She saw Garcia wiping away a tear. She hesitatingly approached Emily and tightly put her arms around her.

"I love you, sugar."

Emily savored the mellifluous closeness for it would probably be the last time she was allowed to feel dem. Garcia smelled like raspberry and enjoyment, but her goodbye to Emily didn't fit her scent in a way that made the situation only worse.

"Yes I know", Emily breathed, "I love you too, you know that, too."

Sadly Emily bent back from Garcia and smiled compelled and bitter while giving the others a rather stingy look that was supposed to express enthusiasm or at least a sprinkling of hope.

"Now that my little gangsta is getting ready to have a little fun... I'd say let's roll."


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N:**

I'm really, really sorry for the long delay. It isn't even that I had so much to do. Because there wasn't anything important. Plus it's summer break. At first I entered the 'Writers of the Silver Screen' Challenge (if you want check out my entry, promt and title are **A Beautiful Mind**, main characters are Ashley and Hotch) and then I had a total writer's block. And my pc broke down once... but I think the loss of 900 loudy words was rather a blessing than a pity.

I'm still not content with how I wrote this chapter. I would have liked to have actually some more things happen in here. However I can assure you that I won't just drop this story. Maybe that's what's going to happen to my NCIS sotry because it makes no sense at all and there isn't a way to wrap it up in a logical way. But there's no way I'm gonna let this story unfinished. Because I kinda started to love writing it. xD And so far it's not too divorced from reality/ possibility.

Thanks to blackandblueangel and HestiaRue17 for reviewing the last chapter. I totally love getting reviews, whenever I check my e-mail and got reviews I'm like all excited (and then the internet might let me down & I have to wait until it's fixed to read them -.-).

I still don't own Criminal Minds! And, since I'm mentioning McDonalds in this chapter, I don't onw that either.

And, by the way, I've never been to DC. MY dream is gong to the Smithsonian but I have no idea what this city really is like and rely on Google Maps.

I hope you like this chapter.

And please, please, please (pretty please with a strawberry on the top) **review!** This story has far more readers and reviewers & I think this should change. :)

* * *

><p>Emily had only been half aware that swallowing a GPS tracker didn't mean to simply swallow a little chip but actually an, even though small, whole electronic device that needed juice to do it's work. Holding it on her palm she knew she could get it into her stomach and yet was afraid that if this, what had been supposed to be the easiest part of the upcoming events, was already so hard to her she might not be able to go through the rest of it. If she struggeled right in the beginning, how could she ever make it to the end?<p>

"Can you do this?", Garcia asked, unable to hide the scepticism from her voice, "because it looks freaking hard to get down your throat, you know."

"I've had worse", Emily responded and forced herself to smile relaxed, "my grandmother used to cook noodles for like an hour to get sure they weren't raw, but I might need a glass of water for this one, too. Guess a good drink would make things easier as wellnbut it won't really bring us forward."

Garcia took a plastic cup and filled half of it with mineral water before he gave it unwillingly to Emily, feeling terribly guilty for that everything she did meant she helped her dying.

Emily, however, gave a short shrift, put the small device in her mouth, took a great gulp of water and put her head back in order to swallow everything. For a couple of seconds she feared she wouldn't make it and choke on the electronics. Small and fast, but surprisingly violent, it made its way down her throat.

With a stertorous cough she leaned forward, gasped for air and emptied the rest of the cup withing seconds.

"We have about 90 minutes left. You're all ready but can't do anything. I still have some time left until I have to show up at Pennsylvania Avenue so... I suggest that... we wait."

* * *

><p>It wasn't any easier than expected. But for sure it was a lot fater and a lot more uncomplicated.<p>

The last hugs with everyone.

The last _Good Luck_s and _I'll be fine_s.

The last few tears of Emily, who felt as if she had already ran out of them, and a lot more from Garcia, some desultorily hidden one's from Reid and some in the eyes of Rossi, Hotch, and Morgan who yet couldn't allow them to stream.

A whispered _Explain to them why I came back. It'll make it easier_ to Garcia.

A last review of what everyone was to do to save Henry and JJ.

A cab that would bring her to a Diner and from where she would walk to her Destiny.

And then, just when Emily fished the last money she would ever touch out of her pocket, another sticky note and in her hands she held what was the last outcry of life.

When she left the car she felt like a dead person.

* * *

><p>When he pushed the door open, JJ wasn't fast enough to supress her scream. Henry still hadn't moved and it was eating her even more than the pain which became harder to endure every passing second. But as soon as Doyle approached her, her motherly instincts took over and she pressed her son against her hurting chest, her muscles flexed and JJ was determined to take whatever was ment for Henry without a second of doubt. Because this, she knew, was her duty now. It was her only purpose of life that would remain until the last breath left her body.<p>

"Don't even think about touching him!"

The words weren't as strong as they had been supposed to be. They left her dry mouth weak, sound- and lifelessless. Doyle answered with a grin.

"You don't have to worry about that, Jennifer. We're moving. You're friend is one heck of a negotiator, even though it took her quite a while to measure out your life's value. But if she's careful enought to not break our agreement you might even be okay."

He paused for a second, carefully observing JJ's reaction. She was stunned and wouldn't have known what to say anyways. Pretending to really be surprized wouldn't have been the truth because she had knows that Emily would do everything she could to prevent others from suffering under her personal enemy. Emily was a fighter, yes, but she tried to make sure that all her fihgts stayed personal, that there couldn't be any other victims than herself.

"Now, I think you should get up. We don't have a lot of time left and it would be a pity if we were late, would it not?" As JJ kept sitting on the ground, only tightening her grip around Henry, Doyle made an angry gesture towards the both of them, causing her to flinch. "Now _move!_ I made myself perfectly clear about that!"

"I... I can't", JJ whispered, frozen in fear. She could barely move - what if he decided to just let her die and take Emily on a different way now, that he would have to arrange something? What if, whatever, would hurt Henry even worse? What if... he would just leave them behind, all alone. They would die, they would perish despicably, without a last bit of dignity... "How am I supposed to walk, I... no. I can't do this. I'm sorry but it won't work!"

He sighted, obviously vexed and angry, but not as agressive as she had feared.

"Cullin, take care of them!", he called over his shoulder and a brawny, sturdy man entered behind Doyle. He grinned too, but different from how Doyle did it. JJ could easily make out that Doyle was, as weird as it sounded, happy. He would get his revenge - he finally would get what he wanted. Cullin seemed to be quite content, too. But he was because he saw the fear in JJ's eyes and because there were two vulnerable, helpless people who were fully dependent upon his mercy.

"Cullin will assist me during the next few days by fulfilling a few tasks that I can't do. It might even come in handy that you get to meet him a little earlier. Cullin - get them ready and bring them up!"

While snapping the last insturcion, Doyle threw two thik, black scarfs in front of JJ. Then he turned around and left, not bothering to oversee the execution of his will.

"Put those blindfolds on, we can't lose much more time."

It was irritating how the giant man's voice was, compared to his outer appearance, quite calm. Nonetheless JJ nodded and hurried to do as he had told. She would have done everything to keep him from touching her boy and the soft tissue of the scarfs was the most pleasant touch since they were down here. When Cullin made a few steps towards them every muscles of hers stiffened.

"I will lift the two of you up. You might hold your son differently. Don't embrace just his torse, you need to support his left, too." He waited and JJ, even though leery why Doyle's stooge took Henry's weelbeing in cinsideration, was glad that she had the opportunity to really hold Henry.

"Now I will hold you similar to how you hold your kid there", he explained and hunkered down, putting his arms under JJ's knees and her back, "and because you're already injured the change of position might hurt you. Are you ready?"

JJ clenched her teeth and nodded.

"Alright, then one, two... three."

As her feet left the ground JJ sucked in the airs sharply. She knew that the fractured bones were all moving around, taking in positions that were even more wrong than before. The pressure of his arm under her back hurt her ribs and Henry's weight from above and the forced blindness didn't make it any easier. They slowly moved out of the room, JJ noticed when they left because her head touched the door frame, and went up twelfe stairs. She heared a door that was opened and then shut behind them with a squeak. And then there was wind and she knew they were outside. It was colder than it had been in the basement, but the sharp gust of wind seemed to put some life into herself.

And just into herself. Henry remained silent.

"I will put you down into a car now. It's a vans cargo area, there will be no car sear for you or your son. It will hurt you again. Brace yourself. One, two, three."

Even though it didn't change anything JJ shut her eyes tight as she tried to prepare herself for a new wave of pain. It was okay this time, or al least not as hard to endure as before. Maybe people adjust to constain pain atfer a while, she thought.

But if she would lose Henry, could she bear this? Could her and Will survive losing a child?

"I, ehm... Cullin, may I ask you-?"

"Sure. But I don't guarantee any answers."

"Why are you not like Doyle but yet working for him?"

"He pays me."

Therewith he slammed the van's door shut and JJ and Henr were left alone. For a moment she considered taking off the blindfold, but most likely there weren't any windows she could look through and if someone would notice that she just broke the rules... it wasn't worth it.

And if not taking it off meant missing something and not being able to save Emily later... it just wasn't worth it.

* * *

><p>"Prentiss?"<p>

"_One of my men informed me that you arrived._"

"Yes. I'm here. Where do you want me to go?"

"_Just go about 500 meters left. A green Mini Cooper will stop at the side of the road. The driver will be a tall black man, should be easy to recognize. He'll get out of the car and hand you the keys. Drive to 1916 M Street. That's a McDonalds. Get yourself something to eat in the Drive Through. Call me when you're there. I'll give you further instuctions."_

Emily was left with nothing helpful but the dial tone. This was just getting more and more confusing. She sighted deeply and welt to find the green Mini. Se doubted that things would be that easy ever again.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

Btw, don't overestimate Cullin. He's a bad guy. Like a really sick one.

&& did you know that 'Cullin' is another form of the irish name 'Cullen' which means 'good-looking'? Which makes Twilight even worse corny than I thought... uuugh. *shivering*


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N:**

My sincere thanks go to MeGkatHeRiNe, Marijke S Bush and HestiaRue14 for **reviewing** the last chapter.

After writing the last chapter -and overcoming a short writer's block- this one was a lot easier to finish. I was done in no time (and a couple of minutes) and I already know how to continue. I guess updating will be easier from now on. :)

But I'm still not sure what to do with Emily yet (do I kill her or not - who knows?).

I do not own Criminal Minds. But I an hope, can't I?

Please **leave a short review!** That would be amazing. :)

Enjoy,

~ AJ

* * *

><p>"Where is she now?", Garcia asked for probably the, literally, hundredth time since Emily had left the BAU. She nervously pressed her thumbs against her chin and even though she would have been the one to observe the changings on the screen, where they could follow a little red Prentiss-Point on a DC map, she wasn't capable of watching her walking her way to death.<p>

"She's moving faster. Seems like she already got the car Doyle mentioned."

Rossi fiddled with his beard constantly. "Should we already start to follow her?"

"I don't think so", Hotch answered, ignoring the fear of, in the end, being too late, "I doubt she's even close to where he wants her yet and the earlier we start to follow her the longer they have to notice. I guess they'll meet somewhere out of town, so when she leaves DC we should leave at a distance of... maybe about a kilometer, too."

"I don't think he'll be true to his word and let her call 911, do you?"

Reid had interposed the question for this was what they all were mostly worried about. If Doyle would actually allow Emily to make the call a huge problem would be solved. Therefore they would be informed as soon as an emergency call was made from either Emily's or JJ's cell. But it wasn't safe. He could still kill them to torment Emily or just because he felt like destorying a family - who knew? But, on the other hand, the danger would increase tremendously as soon as the FBI entered the scene - and maybe even causelessly.

Hotch swallowed hard, trying to ease himself from at least a few of the many worries he had."We're prepared for the worst case. Lets just hope it'll be better."

"Isn't than already _worst case_? We let one friend die so that our other friend can live?", Morgan spat, even though reproaching hadn't been his intention. But damn it, he was angry like hell. "You know we're just _watching_ her die, right? She feels incredibly guilty for everything she did and what she does is... you _do_ realize that her decision is more of an atonement than a friendly turn, right? And we're letting her do this, we're just letting her _kill_ herself-"

"Derek", Garcia interrupted quietly, but different from usual she couldn't change anything, "please."

"_This_, Penelope, is not pink and fluffy and rainbow-y. Not at all. She's your friend and _still_ you are letting her do this!"

Hit by the sharp accusation Garcia stared at him wordlessly.

This wasn't a situation she should be in.

This wasn't part of her world.

And by now she highly doubted that this was even part of her real life.

"You know she doesn't want Emily to sacrifice herself, so _stop it!_", Reid defended the tech quickly as Morgan's offense had cracked all of them, "None of _us_ wants her to be out there. Don't wreak your anger on us and keep in mind that _you_ aren't on your way to save her life either because just as each of us in here you just can't decide whom you want to save more - Emily or JJ. Emily or Henry? Come on, Morgan, you're _not _the soft-mided angle in this room. So don't pretend something different!"

Reid almost gasped for air - he hadn't bothered to breath during his outbust. Morgan looked at him in anger and disbelief. His muscles flexed, maybe unknowingly, but nevertheless Garcia noticed how Hotch and Rossi made a few small steps towrads him, ready to stop any fight that may or may not let loose.

"Oh sure, wonder boy is out expert for justice - if everyone's guilty that's okay?"

"I didn't say that-"

"No you didn't. But at least _you_ should know what being left alone with some creepy psycho truly is like and don't you dare to interject that this time it's different because it's what she wants and the outsiders are bearing true guilt!", Morgan spat and saw, to his won shame not without satisfication, how Reid turned deathly pale. The younger man blanketed the urge to just punch Morgan int he face and run out of the room. Only knowing that his words weren't just accusing but also true kept him from doing it.

"_This _has nothing to do with the current-"

"Okay - so I'll put it that way! What do you think Doyle's gonna do to her? When do you think she'll be dead? Tonight? Tomorrow? Next week? I know you're smart but let me tell you something - she won't! And don't try to tell me it's okay because she told us she wanted things to take that way. If you really believe that you're much more of a jerk than I expected!"

"Morgan, Reid - stop it!", Hotch tried to interrupt their fight. By now he was almost certain that it wouldn't end violent. Both of them were dealing with the amount of guilt they had to carry and the emotional trouble they had to went through during the past weeks. Yet he wanted them to stop. Now. Because, even though he still didn't let anything shine through, this was hard for him, too. And their fight was exactly the fight he had with himself.

"Yeah, you're definitley in the position to call other people jerks!", Reid was about to obsess about every ever so small detail. It was time to get rid of all the anger, "_you_, the oh-so-cool Derek Morgan who just can't stop-"

"Guys! Would you just shut up!"

Simultaneously Reid and Morgan turned around, looking at who just had screamed at them in astonishment. None of them answered anything, though. There just wasn't anything to say.

"Emily asked me to tell you something when she's gone", Garcia began. Her voice was quite and calm again, only shaking a little when she said _Emily_, "and I think it's about time."

Morgan wiped a bit o sweat from his forehead, took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down. Reid did the same thing and so did everyone else - they weren't involved in the fight and yet they felt like they needed to prepare themselfes to hear some of what Emily wanted them to hear. They had to do it with a certain amount of style. And, for sure, not when they were overwhealmed by furiousity.

"Okay, baby girl, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to... do that. To you neither, pretty boy."

"Same to you", Reid mumbled and Garcia aknowledged their words with a short smile.

"Then we're cool again. So you see - I was the first of us, who didn't knew, to meet Emily when she returned. She just came by and I didn't really believe she was real. I had... problems with seeing her earlier and I thought that after having a long night and quite much of a bad day her presence was some sort of a relapse. I asked her to prove she's real and she showed me the scars left from the injuries Doyle had done to her."

She took a deep breath as she tried to brace herself for what was left to say. It was way harder than she had expected - even though Emily wanted her to tell them the truth, Garcia felt like she betrayed her friend, like she was babbling secrets that were, anyway, far off the world she knew.

"She has a clover burned to her chest. When she showed it to me she had to unbotton parts of her shirt and she took of the scarf she was wearing that day. I'm sure you remember it, don't you? It was beautiful, dark blue with that white, filigree floral pattern all over it?" She shook her head, for about a second smiling at how even Reid seemed to be unsure about the details of a woman's clothing. "Nevermind. But... when she revealed that scar, there also were a lot of... bruises. Like around her neck and her throat and everywhere. From what I understand she was in DC for about a week. They still were... they were so dark and I bet they hurt and she... she must have been so terribly close to... this."

"Dang it", Morgan mumbled, "she told me she couldn't stand Paris but I though it was just... dang it."

"She told me that knowing this would make it easier for you to accept her choice", Garcia continued and as the world left her mouth, tears flooded her eyes, "she wanted to die."

The following quite was almost unbearable but none of them was able to break it. Being left alone with thoughts about the sad, deadly fate of a close friend, of a family member, is always hard because one cannot deal alone with the grief of losing someone. Or shouldn't. Trying that means necessarily failing and in the end it is not the loss of that one person that destroys the bound between the othersv - it is the personal failure of each surviving one.

"No", Morgan finally said, "it's not true."

"Derek-"

"I don't mean that she didn't try to kill herself. We're simply looking at this from the wrong perspective - assuming that trying to commit suicide expresses the wish to die. Which, concerning Emily, isn't the case. That's why she didn't do it - she came back because she wanted to live. Heck, she told me that this is the right place for her to be - no matter what. She never wanted to escape from life, she just wanted a place to call home! And then JJ and Henry got kidnapped and I think it doesn't take a bunch of profilers to know why she blames herself for that. She's walking to death right now to save them because she can't stand to have anyone suffer for her - she'd rather suffer for everyone else. But what she wanted was a _home_, and maybe home and death are the same thing but this is not about her wanting to die. It's just not that. It's a lot easier and you too know what that means, don't you?"

Garcia nodded a a wide smile spreaded all over her face.

"We need to change out plans to save her, too", Reid stated, "and we got about- oh, what the fuck!"

Reid's cursing alarmed the others immediatley.

They turned around to face the computer screens, that they had almost forgotten about.

Emily's red point had just left DC.

* * *

><p>"I'll lift you up again. Make sure you hold your son tight enough. I'll out you on a blanket but there's snow all around so it'll be quite cold. Alright? One, two, three."<p>

Cullin lifted her up just like he had done it before and it wasn't any easier than it had been the previous times. The blanket, however, felt warm and gave JJ a little -even though very, _very _little- tiny bit of comfort. She gently stroke Henry's hair, trying to tell herself that she subconciously did it to soothe her child but knowing that its only pourpose was her own peace.

"This is where the exchange is going to take place?", JJ asked, not minding that he probably wasn't allowed or willing to give her any information, "it's too cold for Henry. You need to hurry up."

The heavy, large hand than tapped her shoulder might have been supposed to be comforting, but it only made her wince and seemed to cause her heart to stop beating for a moment.

""I hope you and your son are going to be alright. I'll try to make sure he lets your friend call an ambulance. I heared them discuss that, you know? You did nothing to him and your friend seems to be not as cold as he said. It'll be fine. I'm confident you and your kid will be alright."

"Oh please", JJ muttered, supressing fear but not hatred from her voice, "why do you keep pretending to be a nice guy? Your boss has at least the guts to _be _what he his. You're hiding."

"I'm not all that-"

"No, you're just broke, aren't you?"


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N:**

Wow, now that I passed my writer's block I'm really into carrying this story forward. I already finished the fundamentals of the next chapter, which is now waiting to be revised. Seriously, some of the mistakes I make are like so stupid. I'm having three people sit in a car that's trying to follow Doyle and everything... and one of the people I had sit in there (in the very, very basic raw version) was Emily. Am I totally mindless? Well... I'm not sure I want to hear the answer.

Thanks a lot to HestiaRue14, Marijke S Bush and blackandblueangel for your reviews to the last chapter.

But lets make a deal everyone! This is the 20th chapter, so I guess I could call it a milestone or jubilee. So... what about showing me some love and **everyone who never wrote a review yet writes one right now?** And of course those of you who already reviewed can write one, too but I'm counting on you to leave one anyways. ;)

That could be your part of the deal. Then my part is to be... ehm, happy, grateful & quickly-updating? Sounds good to me!

The disclaimer stays the same. I don't own anything. The idea of how to finish the whole Doyle-thing maybe, but nothing else. Oh, and Cullin & Blain are made up by me, too. But you are welcome to use them... if you give me a dollar or so. :D

I hope you'll like this chapter. The next one will be up soon.

So long,

~ AJ

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><p>The cell vibrated inside of her pocket for a few seconds before it started to play the polyphonic, high-pitched ringtone. Emily didn't look at the display before answering the call. Now that she had saied goodbye there was only one person left to talk to. She had already been given the direction to leave the city and was surrounded by nothing but wood now. Broadleaf forrests had always seemed to be nicer to Emily than the conifer ones, since latter were darker and somehow nightmarish.<p>

_JJ is afraid of woodland._

The new, additional, guilt dealed another blow to her, but being on her way to well and truly mend matters it wasn't really cruicial. Everything would be over soon. Feeling any more guilt, worry or fear wouldn't change anything but make things unnecessarily difficult to follow through with.

She stopped before answering the phone, knowing that she wasn't calm enough to concentrate on both the conversation with Doyle and the icy, graveled road.

"I'm almost there. What do you want?"

"_Your friends are in position. In about half a kilometer there will be a curve. If you pass it you'll see that I am true to my word. I want you to stop the car as soon as you see them. You then will have two minutes to call them an ambulance, open the window and drop the cell out of the car and to open the glove locker. We placed some cable ties in there. Use those to shakle your hands in front of your body and then leave the car. Everything else will be taken care of. Huryy up, it's quite a tight shedule. Transgress and see your friends die. Clear?"_

Emily swallowed hard and carefully stepped on the gas, approaching the curve. She abandoned the last, desperate hope that covering the distance of half a kilometer might take forever right away. This was not the time for stupidity or silliness.

This was not the time to hope.

"Crystal", she whispered, cursing herself for sounding weak and scared before even standing face to face with him.

"_I'm looking forward to see you again._"

"Go to hell."

"_Oh, I will. I will. But I'm not planning on being there all by self, Em._"

He hung up and it took all of Emily's self-possession to restrain herself from just angrily throwing the cell against the windscreen to shatter the damn thing.

And then, as she slowly -and against all her resolutions scared and nervous- passed the curve, there was a clearing. And it was beautiful. It was everything she saw. The breathtaking, spectacular beauty of a place that was supposed to be the host of a horrible, violent event. The ground was covered with a think, white snow blanket that looked just like icing sugar - in the city, there had only been dirty slush covering streets and pavements. This could have been a scene from a christmas movie. Instead it was going to witness something that might be a horror-thriller or some kind of friendship-enemy-drama.

It actually took her a few moments to even think about looking out for JJ and Henry. While her eyes quickly searched the era for the two hostages she already typed 911.

"Special Agent Emily Prentiss calling", she started, cutting off the woman who answered the emergency call, even though she knew that it wan't necessarily a smart, helpful and for sure not a welcomed thing to do, "I don't know exactly where I am so you need to trace this call. I need ambulances for a four year old boy and his mother. Her name in Jennifer Jereau, she's with the FBI and was taken last night by Ian Doyle." While speaking, Emily finally found JJ and Henry. They seemed to half-lie, half-sit on a dark blanket in the behind part of the clearing, close to where the trees and bushes started to spread again, "The boy's name is Henry Jereau, he was beated against his head and was or is unconscious. The woman was beaten and... I don't know exactly. You need to hurry up. They are at... I don't know. A forest or a park or something. Call the Behavior Analysis Unit of the FBI, they'll help you. I won't be here when you arrive. Tell them I wish'em good luck."

Saying this, Emily didn't hung up but opened the window, shivered at the onrush of cold air and reluctantly opened her hand finger by finger until the small device landed in the soft snow. She sighted, opened her seatbelt and leaned to her right to open to glove locker. There were two cable ties inside of the box, already interwinded to form loops. She quickly slipped them over her shaking hands and tried to tighten them around her wrists, hoping that her presence would be enough to keep Doyle from looking at her inability to properly cuff herself as resistance, which would lead him to kill Herny and JJ. Maybe he would show a bit of good will - getting his revenge meant, after all, that a long, big dream finally came true.

Opening the door sill panel was just as inconvenient but finally Emily's combat-bootet feet touched the perished, hard ground. The snow made a creaking sound with every step she made. Maybe it was the extreme cold that caused her whole body to shake and made her knees feel like they consited of jelly. At least it was something she could believe, and the uncertainity whether her weakness was from physical nature only or as well caused by her emotions, soothed her mind.

"Emily, I am so happy to see you again!"

His voice was faked-warm and so was his smile as he approached her from the left side of the road, where he had been hiding in the shrubbery. Emily took a deep breath to keep cool. This was it. Her end. There wasn't a going back, no way around her self-sacrificing fate.

"The EMTs are on their way and I bet law enforcement will arrive soon, too", she said, cursing inwardly because her voice wasn't as calm and strong as it wsa meant to be, "let your men come here and then we can leave. Quickly, please. If we're still here when my kind of people arrives... I can see this ending a huge mess and that's for sure not desirable - neither from your nor from my own point of view."

Doyle nodded and grinned again and beckoned two men to step up behind him. One was huge while the other one wasn't tiny eihter but compared to his comrade of a rather average frame. With another, quick hand signal Doyle ordered them to approach Emily. The huge one pulled her hands out of the cable ties, rudely twisted her arms behind her back and used the same ties, this time a lot tighter than before, to shackle her again. After this was done each man grabbed one of her upper arms and ungently shoved her forward until they reached a Van.

"Woah, what's wrong with you two?", Emily sarcastically raised a complain as she stumbled forward, "there's no reason for being that rude. Just chill out. It's not as if I couldn't walk to that car without having you push me around, duh."

The two men and Doyle simply winked at Emily's interjection.

"Blain, you drive", Doyle ordered and the smaller man opened the driver's door while the huge man and Doyle himself sat down at the stowage.

"I don't think you'll tell me where we're going?", Emily asked and forced herself to smile at her captors. She suddenly remembered the GPS tracker that slowly made its way through her digestive system and felt how her worries resurfaced. They were her friends. What if they couldn't let her die? What if they would try to come for her and everything would get worse and worse..?

"You're not completely right about that", Doyle answered, not caring to hide amusement from his voice. She was terrified. He saw it in her eyes. As much as she tried to hide it, as brave as he knew she was, even though he tried to deny the unpleasant but ironically undeniable fact - she wasn't free of fear. She didn't knew what was yet to come. He did and the thought of his plans made him smile. It would be a time of pure enjoyment. At least for fifty percent of the involved parties.

"Then where are we going?"

Blain started the engine and they drove off. There weren't any windows but Emily was sure they were driving at a faster speed than, regarding the difficult weather circumstances, could be recommended. The ride was rather bumpy and the suspension either damaged or the van too heavy, which wasn't likely to assume, or the road they were taking now was even worse than the one which Emily had taken to arrive at that clearing.

She harkened for the sound of a siren, but there wasn't any yet, and hoped for a terrible accident to happen to the Van - but, again, nothing even close came true. Not onyl wasn't this the time for hope, it was even less a time to have dreams. She closed her eyes to brace herself for what was to come - she was abut to enter a life that would be short but cruel, vulnerable, empty, lone and as lifeless as a person's life can be.

"Well, first we're stopping by at the old warehousing terrain of Cullin's father but I'm not planning on staying there longer than a day. Look at it as a favor I'm doing my two friends here. At first I didn't want to stay that long but, hey - you only live once, don't you?"

"If someone's identities count I already lived three times with access to two more lifes. Maybe I'm a human cat and as soon as you're dead I wake up again to dance on your grave. I should take a tapdance class - would be an appropriate way to celebrate, now what do you think?"

"I, my lovely Emily, doubt that you understand what I just saied. Which will make everything much more fun - and not only to them."

Emily came to a standstill as she tried to process Doyle's words. It peeved her that she had to admit he was right - she had not as much as a shade of an idea what he tried to express because even though she had finally found out how to be quite relaxed on the outside she hadn't stopped being frightened like hell.

"I, ehm... I'm afraid I wasn't really paying attention to you. I have a hard time listenting to people whom I don't give a crap about."

"Blain and Cullin do an excellent jobs and are my most faithful workmen. After all the years that I had their loyalty they deserve a little bonus. That's why I just doubled it."

"And still I have no clue-"

But Emily _got_ a clue, just as she spoke the words and it took her breath away.

_No, no, no... NO!_

"You see, Emily", Doyle simpered, not missing that she finally understood what he had been talking about, "paying in cash only is an american thing, too. Capitalizm and all that stuff. I like to pay in kind."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

Since some of you might not be strikingly skilled english speakers (welcome to the club!) I just want to add that "to pay in kind" meanst to not pay someone with money but with non-pecuniary benefits. Maybe that's general knowledge, but I'm not sure about that. I naged into it like a year ago and had to look it up. So just in case. (I'm a well of knowledge, am I not?)


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N:**

Wohoo, next chapter! Sorry it's kinda late, regarding that I said this update would be quicker. But here it is!

Thanks to HestiaRue14, Marijke S Bush, Swishla, LM and MeGkatHeRiNe for your wonderful reviews. I think everybody who reads this could take a loaf out of their book and **write a review, too!**

Also I am happy to thank lazerwolf314 for beta-reading this chapter! Your revision has been very helpful & I would be glad if you would beta the next chapter (which I have no idea of yet) as well. Really - thank you very much!

The usual disclaimer applys.

* * *

><p>The team arrived almost simultaneously with the ambulance. In the red and blue emergency lights the snow-covered landscape appeared strangely coloured. It looked both beautiful and disturbing at the same time.<p>

When Derek Morgan and David Rossi jumped out of their SUV, three EMTs had just reached the blanket JJ and Henry were positioned on. The car in which Reid, Hotch and Ashley sat, continued passing without a pause for they knew they couldn't allow themselves to stop before getting Emily back safe, too.

As the paramedics approached JJ, she didn't know whether to be scared or not. She only knew that she had to be cautious - she couldn't trust people, least of all with Henry, just because they were wearing a uniform.

"Ma'am, my name is Alyssa Carson", the woman who first crouched down next to JJ introduced herself, "we're here to help you and your son. Don't worry, you are safe now. May I feel your pulse?"

JJ simply nodded and held out her hand. The two other EMTs ran back to the ambulances and returned carrying two stretchers, only half a minute later. It had taken them only seconds to recognize the situation as the case of emergency that it was. The information they had gotten had been brief but startling, yet they had had to check by themselves.

"Henry", JJ mumbled, still overwhelmed by the change of situation and the fact she was as helpless as she had been with Doyle, "he doesn't respond at all. He's not moving, he needs help; I- I don't know how long he's been like that, he needs help, it's too cold for him to be outside... _Hurry_! He needs help- h-he doesn't move, he needs _help_..."

Her voice broke as tears left the blonde's eyes unhampered.

"JJ!"

The outcry of her name caused her to wince. Morgan was running towards her, stumbling every couple of steps when he lost his footing to the slippery ground. Snow swirled up around his feet and she smiled, suddenly realizing that, no matter what was yet to come, she had the chance to see something beautiful at least one last time and to feel as if things could become fine. Rossi, who wasn't able to catch up to Morgan, approached them slower but awoke the same feelings in her. This, JJ knew, was something special happening. Things got better right after they seemed to be at the worst.

Maybe this counted as a miracle happening to her.

Maybe this miracle would rub off on Henry, too.

Alyssa Carson gently relinquished JJ's grip on Henry and, despite JJ's spontaneous protest, took the boy into her arms to lay him down on one of the stretchers where her bystanding colleagues began to carefully fix his head. JJ looked up to her son, helplessly witnessing how they would just take them from her. Panic began to grow in what seemed every cell of her body. How could she let this happen again? How could she just watch as he was being seperated from her _again_?

"No!", she ejaculated and, against her weakened better judgement and a dizzying pain that brought her near unconciousness, launched herself towards the stretcher and got a firm grip around one of its legs.

"Please, Ma'am", one of the EMTs whose name she didn't knew said, "we need to take your son to the next hospital. You'll see him there, we'll help-"

"No, _please_, don't take him from me-"

"He needs medical attention. Quickly", Carson explained to her and comfortingly stroke JJ's hand, "we will do our best to help him and we'll try to help you at the best of our abilities, too. I promise you that. I have a daughter who is about his age and every time she's hurt, even if she only scratched her knee of the driveway, or I look for her and don't see her right away it's hard, I understand that. But you can trust us with him."

Morgan and Rossi dropped to their knees next to the blanket.

"JJ?", Rossi began carefully, "if you want I will drive back to the hospital with Henry, and Morgan will accompany you. Nobody will hurt him and once we're there Garcia will come, too. She's terribly worried about the both of you. You know her... worries tend to make her dangerous and she's always been _so _caring for Henry that compared to her everyone else looked terribly neglecting. She won't let anybody do anything bad to him - if someone touches him she'll probably hang, draw and quarter that one before he even realizes what's going on."

JJ took a deep, aching breath and closes her eyes for a moment. She needed to get her thoughts in order and she cursed on herself for being so stupid. She knew she culd trust those people - Rossi and Morgan were men she would trust with her life and they wouldn't ever hurt a little boy. They loved Henry. They cared about her. And how often had she committed assault victims to the care of paramedics by herself?

She shook her head, angry about her own silliness and slowly relinquished her grip on the stretcher. She forced a short, light smile onto her face, answering to what Rossi had said about Garcia. Knowing that his words were probably an exaggeration, he was sincere with what he said about her being protective and that soothed JJ. Henry would be safe. Nobody could hurt him while Rossi and Garcia were around.

"You're right", she breathed, looking at Rossi, "please join them and tell Garcia I'm fine and she doesn't have to worry about me. Henry is the top priority. Sorry about that. I... I should have known better."

"It's alright, there's nothing to be sorry for. You've been through a lot. I'll see you later then."

The paramedics quickly went back to one of the ambulances, but still they were careful to hold the stretcher even and very calm to not cause any other shakes to Henry. JJ felt like she was torn apart as she saw them leave with her son. She knew very well that the chances of not seeing him alive ever again weren't that low.

All in a sudden she felt like her stomach turned and leaned to the side. "I think I'm gonna be sick!"

She violently emptied her stomach and gasped for air. The urge to gag didn't vanish so she was left with painful dry heaves. Her vision became blurry once again and her head spun even worse. Now that Henry was gone all the pain her protective instincts had supressed crashed down on her. As she took another deep breath that was supposed to bring her back to reality, her ribs sent a harsh and wraking pain through her body. She tried to lean back but it only made matters worse.

The realization that she was incapable of doing anything without being hurt bad enough to lose consciousness at a moment's notice caused her to start bawling. She felt how Morgan gently tried to caress her shoulder but winced as even the gesture that was supposed to comfort her made her want to die rather than to stay strong. He took the hand back immediately and attempted to hold her hand but a look on her left arm seemed to let him hesitate and eventually drop the idea. JJ glanced timidly at her arm, too. She had held Henry with it just about a minute ago and even though it had hurt - what could be visibly wrong with it? After all she had succeeded, hadn't she?

But actually there was an uplift under her skin. Ulna or Radius. It didn't matter. It was bad. And all in a sudden she felt it. With taking Henry they also had taken the leftovers of her bravado, vigour and endurance. She wasn't more than an empty, burning body.

"We need to pull you up on a stretcher, too", an EMT said, also kneeling down beside her. She stared at him and he lightly blushed, "oh, I'm sorry. My name is Ezra Green. I'm a colleague of Alyssa but her team already took off. You and your son will be at the same hospital, of course, but you need to be cared for quickly, too. We, ehm... we saw that video that was made by that criminal and... well, we can't risk losing too much time. There might be internal bleeding and... and..." He gave Morgan a helpless look, but yonder didn't know what to tell her either. "You will receive pain treatment as soon as we are in the ambulance and on our way back to the ER. But this isn't going to be... nice. Your friend... Agent will join you. Alright?"

JJ only nodded her agreement. She knew his words were true. Heck, she felt the pain more intense than she had ever felt before and the only thing she wanted now was to get rid of that feeling.

"I'm right here, JJ", Morgan said as someone else touched her, "I'm right here. You'll be fine. We were... oh my gosh, we were so scared that you... I won't let you alone now. We saw you fight for Henry and we're not letting you down. I know you can do this, alright? Just stay strong. Please, _please_ stay strong. We can't lose you..."

"It's... it's so _cold_."

"Yes", he said, "Yes, I know. But it's not just cold, it's also really beautiful all around and we'll leave that place right now and warm you up. Those doctors can make you as warm as friend chicken if that's what you want. I'll make sure Henry gets some awfully huge stuffed animal that you will hate in a year because it lies around in the living room and on the stairs and where ever you go. It'll be like everywhere too and you'll trip over it all the time you see it but because Henry loves it you can't just throw it away... you know, the classic problem. And now we'll call Will and he'll come visit the two of you. Garcia will bring you something warm and plushy. Maybe... I don't know, a cloud or something like that. Everything's gonna be fine. Just stay with us, JJ, alright? Stay with us-"

"What about... Emily?"

After another wave of pain she felt the stretcher underneath her body, men scurrying all around and then saw the sky moving. She drifted off to sleep, or whatever else the name of the peaceful silence that embraced her was, within seconds.


	22. Chapter 22

**A/N:**

Hello everybody,

sorry for the long delay. I had kind of writer's block & kept writing on my current other Criminal Minds story _Five Minutes_ which you, by the way, should totally check ot & review & maybe even like. (:

The disclaimer stays the same.

Thanks to Marijke S Bush, HestiaRue14 and crazyobsession101 for your nice reviews to the last chapter.

Pleeeease everybody leave a short **review** to this chapter as well. I love getting them & would be happy about every new reviewer, too.

So yeah, this is it. Hope you enjoy.

* * *

><p>The room they had brought her to was small, dark and somewhere in the basement of one of many warehouses close to he port. Bad place to find her, even with GPS. Knowing this Emily was more relieved than worried because it would mean that even if they should try to save her, Doyle would notice they were coming for her. And then they would even flee or he would and create a longer distance to those she intended to protect or he would cut his revenge short and kill her right away, which would be just as convenient.<p>

Or at least that was what Emily tried to convince herself of.

Cold shivers ran down her spinal as she thought of what Doyle had announced in the Van. The next day wouldn't even be spent with him. But it didn't matter. This was the fate she had chosen and, as a matter of fact, fought for. Enduring all of this had been her choice, had been her wish... had been the onyl real chance to disappear without causing any more harm. Every child was raised knowing that ones actions had consequences and that it was up to the own self to decide if those were good or bad. And now she just had to live through what she had started. It wouldn't be nice, sure. But it was what she -had- wanted.

The place, however, was cold, moist and drafty, which wasn't an enjoyable combination. Thinking of how long JJ and Henry had been taken Emily hoped that they hadn't been down at this place - dressed as bareley as people did who went to sleep, helplessly exposed not only to Doyle but to the low temperature which hurt the bare skin and open fleshwounds probably worse.

While Blain had taken care of the van and Doyle had been disappeared to some place unknown, Cullin had pulled Emily put of the car to dump her at this basement. That he hadn't bothered to blindfold her was only one more piece of evidence that prooved that she wouldn't make it out of Doyle's captivity alive. Nevertheless she had been carried deep enough into the building to now be able to remember the way out of it. Not that she had plans to opt for flight anyways.

As she heared someone unlock the door, Emily quickly went up to not meet her visitors while sitting on the ground. Delivering oneself up wasn't an obstacle to standing one's ground. Both of Doyle's lackeys entered the cell, appraising her blatantly sensual.

"Oh, it's just you two", Emily greeted them, feignedly disappointed, "I had hoped to mayve have a short meet with your big boss again. But nowadays even us permanent employees have to settle for second-rate quality, huh? Or... looking at you guys it might even be, incredible as it sounds, a lot lower."

"Yeah? Whatever", Blain put her statement off, not bothering to aknowledge the insult, "since we aren't going to have any profound discussions I guess that our quality won't be an obstacle to the fun we were promised." His eyes wandered up and down Emily's body and he gave Cullin an amused look. "But after listening to Ian's description I expected a bit beyond _that_, didn't you as well?"

"She'll be enough."

"Welfare is enough to lie off, too - but you wouldn't call it it luxury either."

"C'mon, we've had worse."

"I know - I keep telling him we're underpaid. He owns me like a _grant_. On both counts."

Blain winked and Cullin approached Emily, grabbing both her, still chained, wrists with only one of his enormous hands and dragged her out of the room, holding her hands in front of his torse which forced her to walk hunched and a little angular. Blain followed them in a distance, but both men seemed to know quiete well where they were going. Emily tripped and fell as she tried to keep pace with Cullin. He rolled his eyes, stayed and pulled her hands up until she was back to her feet before he continued to walk his way. When she fell again, still not able to walk as fast as he did, he simply trailed her as if he hadn't noticed the extra weight he had to carry.

"Geez, just slow down a little. The two of you have a whole day, if you remember", Emily kvetched, making her best effort to sound grumpy, vexed and bugged, but at least not scared, "and even though I don't know what you need to get off I bet you have a five centimeter kind of boner that's going to last like, ehm... half a minute, at best. Relax, alright?"

"Just shut your fuckin' puss", Cullin growled, still dragging her over the rough, gritty concrete floor. She almost felt how the jeans tissue slowly came apart and felt her skin being grazed by the small pieces of gravel.

"Do you know what I mean if I'd tell you you're equivocating? If I'd be your mother I'd tell you that you are so not sophisticated but being my humble self I might spotlight how you troll can totally not want what you just sayed. Or maybe it would apply to your mom as well. Uuuh, so many opportunities to crack some yo mama jokes here but yet so little time..."

Cullin stopped in frint of a steel door that looked thick and depressingly invincible. He nodded towards Blain who passed them, unlocked the door and opened it with a short, violent kick. Emily smirked as she noticed he was gritting his teeth and obviously tried to control his temper.

Emily took a deep breath and decided to take one more step. "Aw, did I insult you, little one?", she mocked and grinned at Blain widely, "I'm sorry for putting you under too much pressure, really. I tend to overestimate the people I meet but I won't be upset if you don't fit my epectations. Nobody's perfect."

"You truly have a big mouth, considering your absolutely defeated", he responded, dry amusement resonating in his voice, "we might take care of that issue soon. See ya."

She was dropped onto the ground abruptly and Blain left before Cullin, who loudly slammed to door shut, bolting out the least bit of light that had come from the dim light bulb in the corridor. Emily froze in place for a while until she was sure they were gone before she groaningly brought herself to her knees and then to her feet, took a few unsecure steps through the room, carefully checking with her hands if there was anything in front of her. Her knuckles finally lighted on a cold wall where Emily sat down and leaned against it, being somehow tired, and not just because it had been such a hard time. It was everything. Everything that happened was too much to happen.

So she just sat there. Waiting.

* * *

><p>It was warm.<p>

It was dark.

It was peaceful.

It was quiet.

She couldn't really move but she didn't make much of an effort either. Maybe if she had tried a little harder it had been possible but... things were just too beautiful. Too calm. Too comforting. Darkness and numbness utterly embraced her and soothed her mind with absentmindedness.

"Is she awake?", she heared a voice asking and was close to actually try to smile as she noticed how worried the question had sounded. Why shouldn't she be alright? And why shouldn't she be awake? Wasn't it obvious? Could something as plain and insubstantial as a dream ever be such a release of an ordeal and, worse than that, anxiety which she remembered had been terribly real?

"She should wake up within the next 15 minutes", another voice answered, a lot calmer and fortunately not worried at all, "but she'll still be on pain medications and a sedative so she won't be on top of her mental faculies just yet. Whatever you say, you should keep it relatively simple."

"Should I talk to her about... what happened?"

"I think so. She just needs to be in the know of everything and if you try to avoid it too much and leave her in the dark too much it might just be as stressful. It is as well possible that she suffered a retrograed amnesia and might not remember everything that happened - we can't know that as long as she isn't awake. But she needs to stay as calm as possible, too much stress is only going to make matters worse and this is already..." The professional voice sighted and lost a bit of its professionalism. "I just can't imagine going through something like this. Call for me anytime you need help. Good luck."

The door closed, but the person who was left behind was still moving and then, finally, there was enough silence for JJ to get her thoughts in order.

The words echoed in her mind and seemed to remind her of something. Something important. Warm, dark, peaceful, quiet... why was that feeling such a relief to her? Why was she happy about being somewhat comfortable while this was how she felt pretty much every night with Will, right after tucking in...

Her eyes opened all of a sudden and if she would have had the strengh to sit up straight in bed she would have done that, too. She gasped as the memory hit her ferociously.

"Henry!"

"Oh my gosh, you're already back with us!", Garcia rejoiced. The blond, who had sat on a chair next to JJ's bed, leaped to her feet and stood next to JJ immediatley, clasping her friend's hand tightly, "Morgan is still here, really, he just went out to get some coffee for himself and me like a few minutes ago but he'll be back soon and we were... oh my, JJ, you can'tn imagine how worried we were about you! They said you have a really bad concussion and a brain bleeding and even you were so, so unlucky with all that stuff that went on it was like a complete miracle that you weren't unconscious rigtht away and even strong enough to protect-"

"Henry", JJ repeated, not even intending to complete Garcia's sentence, "Henry. He was- he... how is he? Is he... did he survive?"

Garcia's face, already pale, turned white and JJ breathed in sharply, awaiting the worst.

"He's in intensive care; they don't know yet. I was with him for a few hours and Morgan was the only one here but when they told me they could wake you up soon I came here, but Rossi is still with him. He literally hovered over him and called some old friends to run a background check on every nurse and doctor who's involved in treating him." She smiled and wiped away a tear at the same time but quickly came back to informing JJ about the status quo. "He will pull through, as far as they can tell, but they can't be sure whether he has any permanent brain damage or not."

JJ nodded and swallowed hard. He was not dead, which had been her biggest fear, but maybe he wouldn't be all fine, which had been the second largest. If something was bad instead of worse - was this something to be happy about? Could she vindicate feeling relief?

"He is going to live?"

"Surgery went very well and if things, from now on, go on like this, he will. But there isn't such a thing as complete security, or that's what they kept telling me. According to circumstances it looks good for him though and the surgeon I talked to was... well, he wouldn't say it but I can tell he was cautiously optimistic", the tech quickly explained and, after a short while of cinsideration, added: "Personally, I believe that if you were able to stay awake to protect him was a mircale, it means that Henry is going to be fine, too. I'm an optimist so I'd say that miracles seldom come singly. And Henry can be one touch cookie - must be his parent's heritage."

"I tried to fight for him", JJ mumbled and teared up, "I tried so hard but I just couldn't... I wish I had fought for him better, it's what I should have done, it's-"

"It's exactly what you did", Garcia interrupted softly and smiled lightly, "you are a fighter, Will is one and so is Henry. We always knew you would do everything for him and that's what you did. And you did great."

"Everything", JJ repeated and winced as, for the second time, memory struck her, "I made Emily kill herself, didn't I? I asked her to die and I saw how he got her. I killed her. Right?"

"Oh no, don't say that. We're still out there to get her back. You might not know but Emily made Doyle allow her to call those ambulances and she has a GPS tracker with her. We'll find her and we'll finally make that sonofabitch regret what he did to us!" Garcia paused for a second as she realized she had spoken in plural, including everyone. "I mean... especially to Henry, you and Emily of course but overall... to us, yeah. And you know me, sweetie-pie, I'm usually not the person who hopes for other people to get hurt but this time... malicious glee is the best form of it and if I wouldn't hesitate to spit on that bastard's grave!"

Without saying anything further she turned around to grab two foam cups, originally white but now covered with flower-power patterns and peace-signs, with a straw in each.

"So much for that... the doc said I couldn't give you a milkshake yet but I've got you some nicely cooled water", she held up the first cup, "and some apple spritzer. I guess you could need the energy."

"I'm not thirsty and I think I'll get some liquid in my body anyways", JJ declined and glanced at a few IV-bags that were attached to an appliance next to her bed and through a whole bunch of tubes and cannulas connected to her body, "but thank you."

"You'll have the apple spritzer then", Garcia simply replied, put one cup away and approached JJ with the other one, "you've been captured for almost a whole day, been through unbelievable much and even though you seem to not agree on that I say you need something that contains sugar and tastes good." She held the straw right in front of JJ's sealed lips, giving the patient a very impatient look. "Now take at least a few swigs. It'll be good." She paused for a moment before she added much more whispering. "Please, I just need to feel like I did at least something for you."

Eventually JJ reluctantly sucked on the straw and felt the fizzy drink touch her tongue with a mixture of disturbance and coming back to life. "Thank you. Where is Will?"

"We tried to contact him all day long but there was some sort of a special training he had to attend so he was hindered from picking up the phone and Hotch left him, literally, eightythree voicemails. But Morgan reached him half an hour ago and they seemed to be done for the day so he's heading here this very moment. He should be here in probably an hour, if traffic goes well."

Nothing but silence filled the room while JJ tried to figure out what to do.

"Am I well enough to go see Henry?", she finally dared to ask, as every inch of her body pined for stroking her son's hair or just having just a short look at him.

"I don't think you'll be able to exactly _go_ see him", Garica retained her softly and smiled, "you should take a look at yourself and skim through your medical chart, gumdrop. But we'll figure out something when Morgan gets back´. It shouldn't take much longer an you should try to get some rest, yes?"

JJ nodded and showed a light smile, too.

_A miracle._

* * *

><p>"Okay Reid, where do I go?", Hotch asked as he stopped their SUV at the side of the road while Reid was studying a map on his laptop. They had left the woods and were currently driving towards National Harbor. It wasn't an area that they were familiar with but, having detailed directions available, they had been able to follow Emily's GPS trace without problems.<p>

"There's a warehousing complex nearby", Reid said, "there should be another in road in aproximately... a hundret meters or so. We're almost there!"

"Alright", Hotch nodded and floored the accelerator, making the car almost jumping forward, stopping the vehicle with screeching brakes only seconds later.

They knew that they probably wouldn't even find her dead body the moment that they saw the enormous gathering of huge buildings. What for the first moment only seemed to be impressive, even though, due to the bad shape most of the warehouses were in, a little depressing, and overwhealming, was nothing but devastating as they looked at it a second time.

"It's... it's incredible!", Ashley gasped.

Both Hotch and Reid knew what she meant.

They had lost a dear friend and not only had gotten her back, they had also been able to straighten things out with her. They had understood her motives. They, basically, knew where she was.

And yet they would lose her. After making it through the worst - it was over just now. Incredible.


	23. Chapter 23

**A/N:**

Hey there!

First of all I want to apologize for the long delay! I've been really busy with school (I still am, actually) and I hope that I still have some readers left. If so, here comes my usual appeal - please **review**!

Or, to put it in other words: All the cool kinds give a feedback. ;D

Thanks a lot to montydam, HestiaRue14, Marijke S Bush, crazyobsession101, sarahb2007 and Mich F for your reviews on the latest chapter.

& a super-huge bunch of 'thank you's to Lazerwolf314** for beta-reading** this chapter!

I don't own Criminal Minds. But maybe I'll be _so_ close to it one day!

& I noticed that GPS trackers are actually very, very accurate - that's how people play Geo-Catching with them. I didn't realize it & so the GPS trackers in this story... are very special ones that aren't accurate but old and sucky.

Ehm... yeah, so here's the new one. Hope you like it!

* * *

><p>Everything was dark and black and his head hurt. His mommy and daddy had had headaches before, he knew - his mom once spent almost the whole day in a dark bedroom while he had gone outside with his dad, because too much noise would hurt her head worse. What was this kind of sickness called again... megrim? Did he have a megrim now, too? His dad had told him older people got one but why did he have one; he wasn't any older than he had been back in the days, was he? And anyway, where were his mommy and daddy? He was sick and in pain and everything wasn't good at all and now he seemed to be alone, too? It wasn't fair, it just wasn't fair!<p>

Henry whimpered and squinted against a very bright strip light on the ceiling above him. A few tears ran down his cheeks as the light seemed to burn his eyes and he realized he had no idea where he was. Another whimper was forced free as he looked around in panic.

"Henry, buddy. You're waking up?"

Oh, so maybe he wasn't left behind after all. He felt a big, gentle hand touch his shoulder and he turned his head to the side, a grin bursting around his face at the knowledge he wasn't alone. Even as the tears kept running down his face, he couldn't bring himself to stop, to be strong because he was safe and he wasn't alone and someone was there he wasn't cold anymore.

"Uncle Dave", he blubbered out, happy and confused at the same time as emotions roiled. Rossi smiled down at him gently. Why was he smiling? He wasn't supposed to smile. Couldn't he see Henry was crying? His job was to know why people did stuff and he just had to know that crying meant bad things. Like having a megrim.

"It's so good to have you back with us, kiddo", Rossi said softly, "Don't worry, I promise you to keep you safe, okay?"

"Wh-", Henry tried but was choked off by another wave of tears, "Where is mommy?"

"She's on her way up here. She'll be really happy to see you're okay."

"Am not."

"Sorry, bud?"

"I'm not okay", Henry stated under his breath and wiped his nose with the back of his hand, "I hurt."

"Yes, of course. Sorry." Rossi was quiet for some time and Henry saw something building up between his eyebrows that his mom had sometimes, too and which his dad called a _thinker-wrinkle_. But while it made her look smart Rossi looked worried and very, _very _old with it.

"Henry, do you know why you are here?"

"I don't know where I am."

"Right, right", he mumbled, "I completely forgot about that. Sorry, I'm just... it's been a long day."

"How long?"

"Too long. Way too long."

Did he know he wasn't being much of a help? Rossi buried his head in his hands. Maybe he had a megrim too and that was why he didn't say anything smart and kept saying _sorry_ all the time. Yeah, that sounded right. Henry felt a rush of pride at his conclusions.

"So where am I?"

"Oh, right. You are in a paediatric wad of a hospital, Henry. That's the part where they care for the children. Your mother is in the same hospital but she had to go to another part because she is too old."

Herny grinned. "She always says she's young at heart... where is she now?"

"She certainly is. I told your aunty Garcia that you are awake and she is with your mom and now they both are on their way here."

"But why isn't she here yet?" When he had gotten sick in kindergarten his mom had been there to get him only twenty minutes after the teachers had called her and now she was in the same building but not with him, even though the way was a lot shorter, that was for sure. He felt like crying once again but this time he didn't, even though he tried to. Maybe everything wasn't as complicated as it seemed. But he didn't understand what was going on and he only wanted to be with his mom. Or dad.

"Henry, do you know why you are here?"

"My head hurts."

"And do you know why it hurts? Do you remember anything?"

"Germs?", he guessed, not understanding what Rossi was driving at, "it's cold and you said it was a too long day and I fell sick, right?" Again, he paused, suddenly feeling as if something wasn't okay. Not with his situation this time, but with had he had said.

"No. That's not right." Scrunching up his nose, he tried to remember. When he did he whispered, "it was cold and I was in my PJs and we were in a dark room and I was freezing but mommy was freezing worse."

"Do you remember how you got there?"

"Yes. A little bit."

"Can you tell me anything? Anything you remember?"

"Where's mommy?"

"She's on her way. It can't take much longer, I promise. She's going as fast as she can."

"No, she's faster."

"But she's hurt, too. She can't move as fast as usually. But she's as fast as she can be under these circumstances. We just need to be a little more patient, okay?"

Henry nodded but inwardly shook his head. Adults were patient, but children didn't have to.

He wanted her _now_.

"And daddy?"

"He was gone to... ehm, some sort of a cop-camp, remember? He's on his way, too."

There was a clock on the wall behind Rossi's head but it had hands so Henry couldn't read it. He didn't really know how to read the ones with digital number on them either but knew what it looked like when he was allowed to watch _Bob The Builder_ and then _Chuggington_.

"Mummy is hurt?" He asked as he continued to stare at the clock.

"Sad to say, yes."

Henry's voice now dropped to a whisper. "I don't think I remember it." Scary thoughts were starting to bottle up in his head and made it hurt more. There were trembling images and feelings for which he had not the words to describe.

"Do you remember anything at all?"

"There were men and we were afraid. They had knifes and stuff. You know, mommy _can_ fight people with knifes and she can fight monsters and everything but they had me there too and one of them said if she tried one wrong move they would kill me and this made her go out of our house without trying anything. Then we were in a car and then we were in a dark room and it was cold and we were afraid. Then a man hit mommy and then I called aunt Emily and then I woke up here."

"Do you know where you were, Henry?"

"In a dark room."

"Yes, I mean... do you know where this room was?"

"No. The hallways were dark, too and so was the car. Everything was only dark and cold. There wasn't anything else." He lowered his eyes. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. We'll catch the people who took you and your mom and everything will be fine."

"But I-"

"You didn't do anything wrong. You remember a lot of things, that's a great help, Henry. I'm sure you were awesome, just like Superman."

He smiled but it was fake. Inside, he didn't feel like Superman. He felt like he had done something wrong.

In many ways Henry Jareau was just like his mother. He closed his eyes, waiting for the feeling of guilt to lessen -for he had asked Emily to save them and after all this must have been what happened and now she probably was with the bad man and as scared as he had been- and his mom to come and hold him.

* * *

><p>She kept her eyes tightly shut as she felt his body over hers. He was heavy and pressed her shoulder roughly onto the stony ground but she hadn't expected him to be gentle anyways. As for the rest she tried to not prepare or not think at all about what was yet to come. Sleeping with suspects, in other words: with Doyle, hadn't been the most pleasant thing to do, but after all it had been her decision. She could have said no, could have left at any time and this would have been dangerous and abhorrent to her conscience... but her free will.<p>

His breath blew down her face and it smelt like ready-to-serve Spaghetti Bolognese, rancid cheese and stale beer. The ground underneath her was cold and she vaguely hoped it would numb her after a while. Or maybe he would be too clumsy and accidently slam her against it hard enough that she could be allowed to drift into blissful unconsciousness as she wished she could.

Emily had forced herself to keep her face blank as if she didn't care. Of course she _did_ care; terribly so, but what good could caring possible do her? Not caring, on the other hand, would make it easier and held the fragile hope that it would be lighter to bear.

Nonetheless Emily desperately tried to squirm away from beneath him as he eventually forced his way into her. Every last bit of her body refused to accept what was happening, she wanted to bite, scratch gouge his eyes, put a bullet into his skull or just break his neck with her bare hands, anything to escape. Her mouth opened and her lungs filled with cold air, preparing to scream out loud, but no sound escaped her mouth. Her thoughts seemed to be paralized while her body moved angrily in a frantic, subconscious attempt to avert the rape.

"Stop, stop, _stop it!_", the man shouted, "stop it or I'll fucking kill you!"

"If you have the balls, give it a go!"

How could those words possibly be hers? Regardless of the truth they held she hadn't thought them; she hadn't been thinking of anything than reluctance and disgust and the bloody pictures of vengeance. It was impossible to stay calm as his motions were getting harder and more aggressive and agitated thoughts, unsorted and risky as they were, were the only ones her mind seemed to allow.

But what happened was nothing but pure destruction and this very thing required radical measures by nature.

She targeted his eyes and the remembrance of how she had looked through crosshairs the first time of her life rose from her memory for a moment. She then spat out a mouthful of blood but only hit Cullin's cheek. For a fraction second he ducked his head in surprize thought.

"You damn little-"

Being an advanced Agent and a fighter in nature gave her time to overcome both fear and shock in the short moment of his inattention. She felt his nasal bone give in to her right knuckles and slitted her eyes as a gush of blood spilled on her own face. His left hand went up to his nose within a blink as his right fist, not slower at all, tried to get her back for the quick attack. He grazed her jaw, which hit Emily's head against the ground in about the manner she had thought about just a few minutes earlier.

Her vision blurred immediately and she felt that her stomach started to revolt.

_Only one more minute and I'm done with him._

It didn't even take her a minute to put Cullin down. In fact it was plenty enough to raise up one of her knees, energetically kicking it to his unprotected privates. A gasp explosed from his lungs and Emily shut her eyes once again, feeling his body giving in - burying underneath it.

He moved a little bit and giggled lightly right next to her ear; not without good reason regarding the rather ironic position which Emily had brought him into.

"Yeah, very funny", she mumbled, taking a deep breath in an attempt to overcome the dizziness before it could overcome her, "let's see how you like this!"

She put both her palms under his chest, gathering her strenght for one major effort, regarding that she felt pumped out already, and pushed him off of her. She scrambled to her feet in almost the same second. Emily didn't bother getting fully dressed, it wasn't worth giving him a chance to recover.

He had to be dealt with now or never.

And never wasn't an option that Emily Prentiss had.

She kneeled down behind his head and bent over to look in his face. Then -slowly, almost thoughtful- she took the sides of his skull between her hands and lifted it up as far as possible before she brought it back down to the floor. A thud moan was the only response she got and as she repeated the act, one, two, three more times Cullin didn't make a sound at all.

"You can't defend yourself but it's self defence though", she explained while bringing his heavy, limp head down against the concrete again and again. He couldn't hear her words, maybe he was already dead, but the words were addressed to but not meant for him anyway, "By killing you I am defending myself because I need my death to come by fast. Eventually he's going to try to find out where I brought his son to and I can't have him know about this _ever_. So I need to kill you first if it means that I will be killed either quicker and on impulse or that he will skip letting your nasty little buddy have some time with me. I'll either be dead right away or I will be strong enough to die without saying one more word."

She stood up, took a deep breath and raised one foot. As she closed her eyes the images of the video in which Doyle had crushed JJ's foot using the almost exact same technique, replayed in front of her eyes.

Without thinking any longer about it, Emily brought the sole of her shoe down to Cullin's head and she heard it grate over the ground. Her blood became cold and her mind seemed to harden instantly.

It was done.

A harsh man had been killed while unable to defend himself.

It was murder and a rather strange price to pay for a life.


	24. Chapter 24

**A/N:**

Good morning everybody ("morning" functions as a set phrase here. It's past midnight & I try to be socialized)!

Thank you sarahb2007, holy fck and crazyobsession101 for your nice reviews to the previous chapter. I always like reading them, so here comes the standart phrase to everybody who hasn't reviewed yet: **review, review, review!** Pretend I'm a creepy junkie & your only way to escape the rusty knife I'm pressing against your throat is to review (that was appropriately Criminal Minds like, was it not?)!

I hope this chapter turned out alright

EDIT (11/25/11): This chapter has been beta-ed. Thanks a lot, lazerwolf314!

If you happen to stumble over any sort of mistake I would apprechiate being informed of it though. I'm taking the (academic module) IELTS test in the end of this month and I really need to do something to improve my english skills. Everything correction will be helpful. Seriously, this time.

Anyways, hope you like the new chapter!

- AJ

* * *

><p>"Is he alright? Is he okay?"<p>

It had taken her much longer than she had ever thought possible to leave her room. But the time JJ had spent convincing a brigade of doctors and nurses to let Morgan bring her up in a wheelchair had helped building up more worries, more agression and a bunch of curses of which she hadn't even known she knew. The concerns for Henry seemed to temporarily work as the best available pain killers and JJ felt the urge to leap to her feet and head to her son.

"Yes, I just talked to him", Rossi tried to calm the troubled mother down, "he had a headache and he remembers most of what happened but I think he's going to be alright." He smiled. "He's very worried about you and Emily."

"So... he won't be... damaged?", she asked softly, voicing her deep bone fear.

"JJ, he's so young. He won't remember much of it in a few years and if he gets the help he needs from the beginning on I'm sure he'll be just fine. There are specialists and not only are Will and you great parents to him - you're also professionals, you have experiences with traumatized children and I'm convinced you'll be able to handle it."

JJ tried to gulp back her worries. Would Will and her really be able to handle _this_? Will was a fantastic spouse and father, this was for sure, but would or could she still be the good mother she used to be? If Henry needed help they would force her to at least start a therapy too, even though she didn't feel like she needed one. Why would she? It had been about a day only. And single days didn't change one's life until to the end of all days, did they?

"Can I go to him now?", she asked, "Even in honour of your judgement... I don't think I can believe he's alright until I see him with my own eyes."

Rossi stept aside and Garica took over Morgans position shooting the other agent outside so that Henry would not be overwhealmed by too many people at a time. Her heartbeat quickened and every muscle in her body tensed up.

"JJ, one more thing, please."

She turned her head around, annoyed and yet as calm and affable as only sedated people are. "Yes, Dave?"

"What about you? Are you going to be okay?"

"I am if he is." She shook her head, smiling; noticing the doubtful look Rossi gave her. His disbelief didn't surprize her, she would have felt the same way if she had been in his stead. "In all honesty - nothing happened that cannot be fixed. As long as the wounds stay physical they are alright to bear. How long can it take until they heal - six weeks, two months at a max? I will be fine with a few band aids, a family and a pillbox of Aspirin. It could be worse. I bet it's worse for Emily so you better worry about her fate than about mine."

She mumbled the last sentence under her breath but they all heared it nonetheless.

"So... come on Jayje, lets go see our little gumdrop!", Garcia eventually broke the silence and regardless of the fear they all had, real excitement lighted her face, "I know a few peope who are totally going to enjoy a I'm-so-glad-to-have-you-back shopping trip as soon as y'all are stitched up and brought back to me. Early Disney movie night and true girl's night following, of course."

"Sure", JJ mumbled and felt her stomach turn as she thought of Emily, "can we go in now?"

Morgan held them the door open as Garcia wheeled JJ in the room, too slow for the disabled's liking.

The room looked clean, light, almost meager and sort of empty, even though medical equipment was installed everywhere around. A squeaking noise caught JJ's full and outright attention for the strange second before her eyes fell on Henry.

"Mommy!", Henry shouted for joy, "you're here, you're here!"

Both JJ's and Garcia's eyes welled up with tears in an instant and Garcia lightly put a hand on JJ's shoulder as she realized her friend was trying to get out of the chair to run over to her son. She hurried just as Henry was bending out of the bed to get to them; trustfully pulling his arms around JJ's neck, almost falling onto her.

Ignoring the pain his weight inflicted JJ embraced him tightly. His ripcage was lifted and lowered at every gasp he drew and the warm, silky-soft touch of his face against hers was as soothing as nothing else could be.

"I love you, honey. I am so glad you're okay."

"I love you too", Henry muttered next to her ear, "but my head hurts."

"Oh my god, of course", his mother replied, suddenly scared again and yet unwilling to relinquish the tight embrace, "you need to go back to your bed again, you really need the rest."

"I _am_ in bed and I want to be with you."

"Your legs are in bed and that's not enough."

"It's half of me."

"You said your head hurts so your head should be in bed."

"Okay, it doesn't hurt then. Only my legs do."

"You know what, sweetie-pie?", Garcia interrupted the friedly dispute, "what about you go back to bed and make some space for your mommy to lay down next to you?" She paused shortly. "I just need to find a nurse somewhere to help us out."

"No, it's fine. I can do this."

"I already told you to have a look at yourself so I don't think so. Wanna guess why you came here in a wheelchair? It's not due to Derek's and my kindness or the pleasure we take from carousing you around."

"Then let's ask Morgan or Rossi. I just don't want to ask a nurse for help here. She'll be against it and send me back." She smiled wickedly as she saw Garcia's unconvinced look. "You now, even before she'll send _me _back she'll tell you to leave for you aren't his mom and you won't even get a chance to _attempt _to mollycoddle the two of us."

"Alright, sustained", the tech sighted and truned around, shouting out an unmuted, loud, "Derek, darling, get in here asap or I'm gonna-" Garcia was interrupted by the melody of her cell phone ring tone and mumbled a short "Hang on a second" to Morgan who had entered the room. His face was curious and confused but he haltered at Garcia's words.

"Yes?"

"_Garcia, are you still at the Hospital?_"

"Ehm... yes, Hotch. Henry has just woken up."

JJ's concerned glance followed her as she left the room. This really wasn't a talk suitable for Henry, but Morgan and Rossi needed to be part of their conversation.

As soon as the door was closed and they stood in the empty hallway, she put Hotch on speaker.

"I only have my laptop with me but it should be plenty enough to run a search on whatever you need. Just tell me what you're looking for and I'll get it."

"_Do you have access to a database of... property owners or anything?_", Reid asked.

"I sure have. So what am I looking for?"

"_Garcia, can you look for-_" He didn't finish the sentence but sighted. "_I don't know. We're at the National Harbor and there are like, unscientifically spoken, a bazillion of buildings and I don't think that one of those happens to be owned by Doyle?_"

It only took Harcia seconds to confirm the obvious. "Nope."

"_Maybe one of Doyle's men owns one?_"

"I... I don't know, Reid. He has plenty of connections that we know of and even though I'm neither a gangster nor a profiler I'd say he would be terribly stupid to use one of those to get back on Emily. I don't even wanna bet how many of his people are absolutely unknown to us. If you give me something to get started on, I'm relatively sure that I'll be able to tell you where they keep Emily withing five minutes max but right now I'd be fishing in muddy waters without even having an angling rod."

"Hey, wait a second", Morgan suddenly interjected, "I think you might have a point there."

"_I do?_"

"No, Garcia. Emily stipulated that Doyle would only bring two of his men and while we can't tell whether he was true to his word he would have taken those that aren't connected to him through their criminal records. I believe they have one nonetheless but... I'll be back in a minute."

He rushed through the corridor quickly. The lightgreen linoleum covered floor squeaked under his soles and he almost collided with a busy surgeon who gave him a dirty look, opened the door to child intensive care too roughly, blushing slightly, burdened with guilt, as he heard Henry yelping and saw JJ tensing up next to Henry's bed, ready to defend her son. Feeling quite awkward as soon as she realized it was just Morgan, JJ dropped her gaze and painted a faint smile on her lips. How emberassing this was. Morgan wouldn't ever be a scary man to her and she couldn't make him think that.

"I'm sorry-", they began simultanously and broke off to let each other break the first ground. Eventually JJ gestured that Morgan should be the one to talk first.

"I should have been more careful", he quickly apologized, "I guess I wasn't thinking, I, ehm..."

"No, it's alright, I just... didn't really pay attention to the door. I was merely surprized, it's okay."

"Hey Henry, you're doing alright?"

The boy only nodded as he was still getting over his reawoken fear. JJ patted his hand and gave her son a reassuring smile. Henry answered it rather hesitantly but as he did, JJ playfully nudged his nose with her index finger, something that originally has father had done ever since Henry had been a baby.

"You were... asleep so you won't know about it yet but Uncle Derek helped saving us. He was the frst one showing up since he's not as old and feeble as the person you're calling Uncle Dave."

Morgan tried to smile as well but knew he failed terribly. Looking at his friend and her son being hurt like this seemed hurt him almost just as much. "I need to talk to you mommy for a second, okay?"

He nodded again. "You're saving aunty Emily."

"Yes, we do."

"She was far away. She was _dead_. Then I talked to her." Henry paused for a moment and then looked up to Morgan with his eyebrows raised as high as only the most curious children sometimes did it. "So she can't be dead, right? Will she come back? The bad man was angry and I think it's 'cause of her."

"She was far away, yes. But not as far as dead. The difference is rather small but quite awesome and-"

"So what do you want to know?", JJ interrupted in a harsh but determinded tone, "you came here in a rush so it's important. If you're getting her back we can't lose much more time."

"Sure, sorry. Did you meet anyone beside Doyle?"

"Two times. Once when they took us and then before the exchange happened."

"We think we're looking for one who accompanied Doyle to the exchange. Do you remember anything? Names, looks, anything that they ight have mentioned?"

JJ took a deep breath. "Cullin."

"First of last name?"

"Don't know. He was... gosh, male, white, big. He pretends to be a good guy but he's just like everyone else of his sort. He said he's doing it for the money but I don't believe that's the whole truth."

"Why?"

She closed her eyes and tried to get her thoughts in order. Everything was just too chaotic to be easy to see through or at least to understand. She knew what had happened -how could she not?- and yet her frshest memories were almost too present, to close to be precise.

"I don't... I don't know, Derek. I think there might have been something off to make me think it but I... I just don't know. Or maybe I do but I cannot recall it ot... whatever. I'm sorry. But there generally need to be other motivations than a negative item on credit report to make a man work for Doyle, right?"

"Hey, that's great. Cullin, you said? That's a lot more than we 're giving Garcia something to get started with and we'll get everything back to normal in next to no time. Emily will be alright. We're doing everything we can, I promise."

"Derek, there were so many people whom I have told the exact same thing. I've been with Doyle now, too and she won't be just fine. He... he hates her and I can't even think about what he _might_ do to her."

"Then we'll hurry to get her back before the worst part starts."

"You know she decided to be as good as dead for a second time."

"She'll make it anyway."

"I know. I'm just... _worried_ is an understatement. I don't know. How could she possibly be fine after all this?"

Morgan frowned and nodded. "I understand."

He left the room quickly.

"Garcia, we're looking for a man called _Cullin._ White male, maybe he's having financial problems and regarding Doyle's, eh, business, there's gotta be something irish about him."

"_Where did you got that from?_", Hotch asked over the phone, causing Morgan to wince lightly. He hadn't forgotten about their teleconference, although it had slipped his mind.

"JJ met him. If we can't narrow it down I though... well, DC can't have a lot of irish guys named _Cullin_, so maybe Garcia can match the list of owners of these warehouses with whatever kid of resutlts she might get. And maybe we eve-"

"I got it!"

A short but loud laugh busted out from her as she moved her head in front of the computer screen in excitement until the distance between her nose and the device was only millimeters.

"Jonathan Kian Foley, tradesman who came to the US ten years ago, owns building Alpha 46 Tango, which he purchased five years ago. According to his insurance, which I officially didn't hack if you guys don't mind, severe water damage and mold infestiation made using it for anypurpose dangerous and pretty much illegal so it's empty and basically waiting to be teared down. His son Cullin Melvin Foley accompanied his father and originally used to work for him but got fired after he had stolen almost ten grants of the comapny's money. His father dropped the charges though but Cullin appears to have been carrying out his everyday work selling drugs and weapons to teenagers. I believe that's the one we're looking for."

"_Alpha 46 Tango?_", Hotch asked for confirmation and they already heared how the car's engines got into top gear through the speakers. The question was meant to function as coverage, as a simple way of reassurance, while waiting for it wasn't actually necessary.

"Positive."

Garcia grabbed Morgan's wrist tightly and was relieved to feel that his pulse seemed to go as fast as hers.

It was about to end. Good or bad, once and for all this nightmare would be over.


	25. Chapter 25

**A/N:**

First of all I wanna apologize for the long delay! But at least it's not as long as the last delay was. Or so I think.

Thank you crazyobsession101, Callygirl80 and sarahb2007 for your reviews to chapter 24 and 12wallflower for giving me feedback on the first chapter. I loved to read evidence for both, people continuing to read this story and new people giving it a chance. Thanks a lot!

Again, this chapter hasn't been beta-ed. Hopefully later, but I could hardly wait to update this story.

I would love to get **some more reviews!** I'm proud to say that I have become a regular reviewer to some of the stories which I read on a regular basis so I know that it takes little effort to write what you liked or didn't like about the chapter - but it will make a certain somebody really, really happy.

I still don't own Criminal Minds, but** Criminal Minds owns my heart**!

Oh, and you should really watch "The Big Bad Swim". It's an independent movie featuring Paget Brewster, fully uploaded on Youtube (in 10 parts) and super awesome!

I've also started a new story, so you might go to my profile to check out **"The Candyman Can!"**. It's supposed to be gruesome, featuring Foyet and Will.

However... hope you like this chapter!

- AJ

* * *

><p>At this point I would like to <strong>voice a brief warning:<strong>

While my own laptop plainly broke (I lost almsot the entire rough draft of this chapter), my mother's old laptop, which I got to use after mine began to fuck with me again, got a destructive virus while I was on this site. It's a german one (so don't worry about getting the exact same one), which pretends to be a ban of the federal police. It claims that the owner downloaded child pornography or data that contains material showing violence against children or sodomy and then they want you to transfer them some money to un-ban the computer. This is, of course, ridiculous. You can as well, as I did, format the harddrive and newly install the operating system but then all your data will be lost.

So what I really wanna say is: There are these times when you click on a user's profile and you're redirected to some pop-up like site and these are full of viruses! Always update your virus scanner, firewall and whatnot! Just be careful & use protection. ;)

Thank you.

* * *

><p>Musty water soaked her clothes and made her flesh crawl. Its smell seemed to pierce marrow and bone, now that her most acute worry was lying lifeless on the floor and her senses enabled to detect other surrounding stimuli. Emily had allowed herself to sit down for a moment and to quake with cold and commotion but as her adrenaline level sunk fear and disgust slowly began to overtake her mind. She had lost her sense of time, though she knew that she had been resting longer than reasonable, but couldn't convince herself to get up again. The rollercoaster of emotions and turning points she had been through had not passed her by without leaving their marks and right now she didn't feel like going through it one more time.<p>

Giving up and nascent hope, pride and humility, the face of death and a sting of life had gotten the best of her and left a staggering, essentially noble-minded but self-overburdened person.

The interpenetrating creak of the door hinge eventually forced Emily to focus on her current situation. She slowly got back to her feet, fighting another wave of pain which flashed through her head and made it spin. A thin line of light fell into the room, followed by a cold draught.

"Sorry Cullin, but I think we'll need to change out plans. Blaine saw a car and we need to get this over with as quick as possible. I'll give the two of you a grant and a car and you can spend the night however you like to."

An unwitting gasp escaped Emily's mouth as it was Doyle's voice instead of Blaine's which she recognized. As frightened as she had faced being raped by two perverted creepers it were Doyle's attempts to winkle out of her where she had brought Deklan to which she feared more.. The door was kicked open and before either of them knew what was going on they stood face to face to each other. None of them had expected a situation like this to occure. For a moment their breaths rose to the ceiling in silvery, swirling clouds. They went slowly and calm and there was nothing but quiete and a hint of peace filling the air.

It was the silence before the storm, utterly perfect and fragile by nature.

"What the hell did you do to hi-?"

Doyle's voice broke the silence and compelled hell to break loose, but Emily didn't even give him the time to finish his sentence. She dashed off to somehow fight the man in front of her or at least run away from him, in the hope that she would be quicker than the reflexively grip of his hand to his gun. But Doyle didn't reach for his gun at all. It was over as surprizingly quick as it had begun. His strong hand clasped her arm roughly and slammed her to the side against the wall, while his free hand got a firm grab to her throat. Its knuckles were pressed deep into the soft tissue under her skin but this and the pain originating from the poorly healing strangulation marks that were already there weren't bothering her much.

A wicked grin spreaded out all over Doyle's face. He tightened his grip and chuckled to himself, taking note of the mark weakness had already left on her neck. "As I see you aren't interested in staying here much longer anyways."

Emily didn't answer but closed her eyes and tried to get a gulp of air. First her lunge but soon after every cell of her body seemed to burn with the voracious need for oxigen. How, for cripes' sake, had she been able to do this to herself, to _want_ something like this to happen?

She struggled in a last attempt to break free of him. His hands seemed to be strong as iron and she was too burnt out to resist them.

"We can shorten this. You know what I want, so... I guess I can do to you what you want, too."

She used the last bit of air to force out a fuzzy "I won't tell you anything". The darkish room around her faint to pitch black. Only Doyle's face remained in front of her eyes. Her blurred sight of him revealed the monster that he truly was. Her eyelids dropped as she was about to lose consciousness, her legs gave in underneath her and she felt how the touch of his hand to her throat became even harder and invincible for her whole weight lay on his hands.

The darkness was cold but held nonetheless the ease that she had been looking for.

Emily didn't realize how he was taking both his hands off of her, how she dropped down onto the floor unfettered, how she breathed stertorously and how the man who wouldn't let her die just yet carefully lifted her up to carry her away.

* * *

><p>It was almost ironic that Emily seemed to wake up due to a heavy headache. Her head was spinning and even though she vaguely remembered that she had been injured worse it was the only thing she was able to focus on... or the only thing she discerned considering that it was what marred her concentration.<p>

Doyle had strapped her arms and legs to a chair with cable fixers tightly enough that they were superficially cutting into her skin even though she didn't trie to secede. The whole situation wasn't a pleasant repetition but meant at least that Doyle would try to make her talk and not let Blain come close to her. Every bit of spared suffering counted.

As Emily blinked a couple of times and took a deep breath she noticed two heavy combat boots standing on the ground in front of her. She didn't rise her head to look at the man who was wearing them.

"It's a pity I didn't get to shoot you the last time." She sounded hoarse but her head was pounding at the low voiced words.

"I know what that feels like."

"You failed doing that twice. And for all good things come in threes I guess Imma be lucky one more time, right?"

He laughter sounded like a dog's barking. "Yeah, I beg to doubt that you'll consider yourself _lucky_ in about... well, already, actually."

"Allez en enfer."

"Geez, we already talked about this. I'll take you with me, at all costs."

"Oh then... here I am. You got what you want, y'are happy now?"

"You're not what I w_ant_, Emily, and you know it. I must admit that I was surprized when my men told me that you returned to DC. I've been to your grave twice, you know, and I wonder whether they'll get you a new tombstone or just reuse the one you already have. You've got a beautiful grave there and there funeral was... moving, to say the least. heart-wrenching. I honestly thought you were dead... but after you made the great mistake to tell me about my son I should have seen this coming. You don't have the stones - neither to kill nor to die."

"I have them now, don't I?" She spoke a little slurred and as the words made their way through her mouh they left an oblong streak of fire in her gorge. "I said I'd end you and as it looks right now I'll probably end here by myself... but you know what? It's worth a try."

"Awesome try. It looks like you're totaly getting the chance of _trying_", Doyle answered with dry sarcasm and the knowledge that he was telling the truth stung like acid that was pulsing in her venes through her entire body, "Not to mention the possibility of actual success."

"I won the last couple of times. You won't hear as much as a whiff of anything concerning Declan and I'll win again."

_"You_?", Doyle spat and tried to spit on her face, sprinkling the parting of her hair with a tenous drizzel of his saliva, "_you_ don't have anything but fear and guilt upon your shoulders. An innocent child might die due to your failure. The mother is hurt, too. Your friends know you betrayed them and my son does probably not remember me. _You_ are tearing apart the families you're getting close to and you know it just as well as the ones whom you have hurt. _You_ are here because you have no place to go to, because nobody wants you but you can't be all alone either because even you aren't able to get along with yourself. _We_ are paying the price for _your_ closeness."

She was chocking. "You aren't... I'm not... I'm here because I needed to-"

"-save your friends, aka family? Then isn't this right? Am I not telling it just the way it is?"

"No!"

"Haha, oh Emily - I am _so_ right and you're seeing it, too!"

The air in the room became rare and unsaturated. Emily's breathing frequency accelerated and a struggling attempt to calm it down by closing her eyes failed. Pictures of the video of JJ and Henry raced through her mind, accompanied by a ghostly reverberation of _Danny Boy_. Her heart pounding like mad she panted for air, terribly aware that Doyle was being a witness to this. She felt the panic rise, grow, expand in her chest until it felt like it was about to crush her. She heard Doyle sight and move around, he was about as surprised at her reaction as she was, and the thought that this wouldn't feel as bad if he would strangulate her again occurred to her just as she felt the sting of an injection needle stabbing in the side of her neck muscles.

"Awesome, we're just going to hasten this a little."

"What-?", she mumbled muzzily, not fainting but being quiete close to it. His face came close to hers until she felt his breath waft over her cheeks. Spearmint toothpaste. Unexpected.

"Where is Deklan?", he asked softly. The sound of his voice invaded her ears twisted and _green_.

_He's drugging me!_ Her mind was barely agile enough to understand what this meant. She shut her eyes tightly and opened them up to a worse scene.

There is a certain sort of nightmares where you're all by yourself in a great, fantastic world which is populated by the most colourful grimasces, showmen or whatever. People being half men half bird, spitting rainbows and music. And you're drowning, perishing under the swell of the ununderstandable.

"Where is he, Emily?" His tone rose and became more urgent, "_Where is he_?"

She shook her head and the image in front of her eyes liquefied.

"No... no... let me..."

"It's one small word... just tell me where he is, Emily, please... tell me, come on..."

A deep breath brought a ray of light to her jag and the idea of fortitude made it into the word. "Never."

Doyle giggled. He turned around, vanished from her tunnel-like field of view to return only seconds later, carrying a tray on which a selection of filled syringes lay, and became the evil clown-surgeon in the centre of every paradise-nightmare land.

"I know many and many ways to get what I desire and, yes, you beat me twice. But it's not over yet. Because I always, _always_ get it in the end. You think I cannot break you?"

Cold sweat was brought to her brows, by his words probably as much as by the drug. She couldn't bring out a sole word.

"I'd rather- I- I'd rather die than... tell you anything."

"Emily Prentiss, I solemnly swear that you will be broken."

* * *

><p>Alpha 46 Tango... wasn't as easy to find as they had assumed. Reid had understood the system of streets, numbers, phoenetic alphabet letters and buildings quickly and was leading them safely through the dark maze of scrapped grey buildings but they were going a long way. The genius eagerly fingered his gun which was, first of all, an unusual habit which didn't go unnoticed by Hotch and Ashley and, secondly, a rather concerning that it was him and he was getting closer and closer to its safetly catch.<p>

"Okay Reid, where now-"

"Right, left, right, right, left. Then right and-"

"Just go one by one."

"Okay. Go right then."

"And faster, maybe", Ashley interjected, "these streets are straight and I don't think we need to expect any contraflow, righ?"

Without a comment Hotch steppt on the gas and floored it, even though he was already going a lot faster than recommended. Reid's hands stopped fiddling around with his gun and he both clenched them to fists. Both Ashley and Hotch felt, for a moment, sorry for scaring him, not feeling to comfortable either at the thought of the black ice that was probably hid underneath the thick layer of snow. But Reid swallowed the urge to express his worries and underpin them by giving some smart statistics.

Reid and Ashley gasped simultaneously and even Hotch's features visibly tensed as they slithered through a sharp curve. The tires spun for a moment and they prepared to rush into the wall to their left just before they got grip again and raced on.

"Next go left."

They lurched and scratched a wall with the right back fender. Reid jelped and Hotch slowed the car down until he had fully control over the vehicle dying in some accident while Emily was killed by Dolye wouldn't bring anyone any good. They would risk their lifes soon enough, this wasn't the time for running any needless risks.

"Hold on... just hang in there some more time..."

Hotch glanced at the clock on his dashboard. Ashley followed his glance and burried her head in her hands. They were running out of time. Emily would probably not be dead by the time they arrived but worse things than death could have happened to her then

"It is so late."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

Ever since I got rid of my stupid french class I enjoy making use of french words so I couldn't resist to use at least a few of them in here.

_Allez en enfer _means _go to hell_.

But for it's second plural it's the polite form, so no swearing or anything in this chapter (yes, I'm super-polite, how awesome is that?)! :D


	26. Chapter 26

**A/N:**

So again it's business as usual - sorry for the delay, I've been busy and still don't own this show and so on... okay, I'm glad we talked about that. :D

Chapter 24 has been beta-readed (just in case you want to read it without as many typos & some changes concerning the choice of words). And since I scored a glorious 7.5 at the IELTS I officially wanna say: Hey, my english skills aren't all that bad. Enjoy the intelligence of a super-human wannabe-author (not to brag but... the super-human is me, got it? ;D)!

Thanks a lot to elodie84, sarahb2007, crazyobsession101 and Khaida21 for your nice comments on chapter 25. I apprechiate them very much and get really excited whenever I see that I got a new review. So pleeeeeease, make me happy, everybody! I'm a touchy kind of person so take note of my "other authors don't need to beg for their reviews" kind of comment. jk, jk...

Btw, I have finally made up my mind on who will live and who will die, hehe. And I actually wanted to bring this story forward by having Hotch, Ashley and Reid enter the warehouse but I kinda hate writing scenes that consist of nothing but three people entering a building so I'll either describe this in the next chapter or find a nice way to skip this part. Just sayin'...

So anyway, I hope you'll enjoy.

Please review...

~ AJ

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><p>Sending Hotch, Reid and Ashley to the pertaining building had left them waiting at the hospital, merely enduring the inability to influence the situation's outcome. Morgan, Garcia and Rossi had powerlessly sunken down to the floor in front of the room JJ and Henry were in, and Garcia had grabbed the hands of both men sitting to her left and right. She hadn't noticed it and neither had they.<p>

Lightly colored trainers, transitioning into the blue, green and purple clad legs of nurses and doctors who were bustling through the hallways without visibly taking note of the bitter fate they were passing, constantly crossed their field of vision. A clock, which hung over the door to the ICU unit, was steadily ticking. A man carried a little girl in his arms. Her head rested on his shoulder, her eyes were peacefully closed but were puffy and traces of dried tears remained on her pale cheeks. They stepped out of an unkown, unlabeled room and into another one, crossing their lifes for the timespan of only seconds.

The realization of the fate they were surrounded by hit Garcia hard. People were _dying_ in here. Hell, this was the pedeatric station! This was the section where the _Children_ died, this was the place where parents lost their sons and daughters while others were saved and still others arrived too late to receive as much as the try of being saved at all.

Minding this... could JJ and Henry possibly be considered some of the _lucky_ ones? She frowned at the thought, disgusted by her own deliberation for this did certainly not apply. But maybe them -Morgan, Rossi, those who were out to get Emily, herself and Will, who still was on his way- were the lucky ones. They wouldn't lose a son and they wouldn't lose a wife. They were luckier than many of the people around.

"They can do this", she eventually stated and looked at the others, hoping to find confirmation in their faces. They couldn't give it to her. "They are genius, a dark knight and some sort of a natural. And Emily is Emily, so why shouldn't they be able to save her and why shouldn't she be able to stay alive long enough to be saved?"

"Yes... yes, you're probably right", Morgan mumbled but her words, as much as he would have loved to believe them, could not convince him of a happy end.

"I _am_ right." She gulped back some tears, and added in a whisper: "I must be."

Rossi hadn't said anything. He kept staring through the glass door behind which JJ was still sitting next to Henry's bed. She had caressed his hand until he had fallen asleep but still clung to it. He couldn't see her face but didn't had to to know what it looked like.

Garcia eventually followed his stare. "They are going to be okay."

"You really think so?"

"I know it. JJ's strong. Will is a good man and Henry is a wonderful boy. They are good at heart and they are warriors, all of them."

"Being good doesn't guarantee perpetual healing." He sighted and suddenly felt the urge to embrace someone. Garcia would have most likely welcomed it. He didn't move though.

"Do you really think I will allow them to _not_ heal?" She smiled until Rossi's labial angels fluttered and started to resemble a smile, too. "They are safe now. Nobody will ever take them from us again." She let go of their hands, stood up and playfully kicked their legs. "Now get up. Let's be with who will make this a happy end."

* * *

><p>She woke up with a particularily frantic gasp for air. Her head soared up high, as she was in shock and without any memory for a moment, and fell down, her chin resting against her chest, just as quick as pain and dizziness disabled her to keep it up and the recurrence of her memory made the attempt unnecessary.<p>

Cold streams of sweat covered her entire body, caused her clothes to be stuck to her skin, which seemed to be set on fire by the icy air. Though Emily could tell there was faint light she couldn't make out anything else around her. The throbbing pain in her head was screaming _Deklan_ in a steady rhythm. A flimsy twine of saliva began to drip down from the corner of her mouth.

The punch to her jaw came unexpected. A sharp but still gratefully distant pain flashed through her head, which was thrown back by the immense force of the hit. An agonized moan escaped her lips before she gained enough perception to realize what was happening to her - and to remind herself of what her only purpose was.

_Deklan._

"I will make you talk to me, Emily", Doyle said in a calm voice, which caused Emily to hazily raise her head in curiousity until a second punch followed the first one.

The rememberance of how the touch of Cullin's broken nasal bone had felt against her knuckles was, for a moment, more present than the pain she was in now and even though it most likely wouldn't matter whether her nose would break as well or not, she desperately wished that this would not happen. It would be bloody and the minor injury would distort her entire face. Worse than what currently was the case.

And the feeling of it... Breaking one's nose was, first of all, a symbol. One didn't die of it and it wasn't an obstacle to pull one hell of a fight to those who were able to overcome the pain. But it meant that you could not protect your head. That the opponent had hit you in the face, that you had let it happen and that it could have been a quick stab in the eyes just as well.

It had felt incredibly good to maul the face of the man who had raped her.

Doyle wasn't supposed to experience this, too. Not with her, not as he could kill her in so many other ways...

"You won't."

"I wasn't trying to start a debate. You should be realistic enough to realize I merely stated the obvious."

Another punch, straight against her mouth this time. Emily felt how the soft, tender inside of her lips was cut open as they were pressed thightly against the sharp edges of her teeth while their outside burst open unter the collision of his fist. The feeling of warm blood and its iron taste filled her mouth and she resisted the urge to simply swallow it.

As she opened her lips to grin at Doyle her teeth were outlined one by one as the dark red claret filled the spaces between them and a sip of blood disgorged from her mouth, running over her chin and down her throat like a red wave of painful scorn until it disappeared in the tissue of her blouse and left nothing but another cold, wet stain, which was barely visible in the crepuscular light.

"You could press almost everything out of me, really. Hidden secrets about god and the world, Area 51, my deepest fears,conspirational theories, the FBI, secret codes... every other bad guy would try to take some advantage of that. Some would torture me for a living and they would have a _great_ life as soon as they'd be done." Emily uttered a snigger and shook her head. "But you can try for as long as you want to get after those who matter to me... eventually you will have to give up. _Never_ will I tell you anything about them. Break me if you can't live without trying but not a single crack will go deep enough as it would eventually lead you to Deklan. You are doomed to fail, Ian."

He raised an eyebrow. "You are not weak. Not that I'm surprised by this, though."

"Flattery will get you everywhere."

He turned around and grabbed the tablet of syringes again. Emily frowned inwardly but took a deep breath and blanked the urge to say anything just to keep him from giving her another injection. She tried to convince herself of that it hadn't been _that_ bad. He could have cut off her fingers, for instance, which would have been worse. He could have let Blaine rape her as well. He could have broken his promise to let Henry and JJ go. Then how bad could it be to endure a couple of pricks? She wasn't a child, for heaven's sake!

"I have been reading some books about the history of american serial killers", he began, one of his hands hovering about the range of helpful liquids, "and I stumbled over the three Highway Killers. Did you know that Kenneth Bianchi actually convinced a woman to try to commit another murder, following his pattern, and leave behind is DNA? She got caught, failed to murder and was sentenced to 13 years. It's rather interesting, huh?"

"Just say it - they tortured their victims. Raped them, too." She sighted vexedly, even though she was grateful for the short delay. "Veronica Lynn Compton became a couple with another criminal and Bianchi found another 'civilian' too." She shrugged slightly. "Just saying..."

"Exactly. It was quiete an inspiring article, really. While you rarely find many details about the actual torture I'm quiete certain I read that they injected some sort of a cleaning agent to at least one of these women."

Emily shrugged again and yawned ostentatiously while his words made her blood run cold.

"But I have a better idea", Doyle continued and grabbed two syringes both of which were filled with a transparent fluid, an acromatic and a yellow one, "what about I give you three options. One - you tell me everything. Two - well, I don't know what exactly it is. It looked all bright and beautiful so I guess it's effects are kinda fun too, no? Three, and I really like this one too - Dilaudid. I assume you know what it is."

She gasped at the last word, unable to hide her dismay.

"Your choice, Emily?"

"How did you find out?", she asked under her breath, unable to hide her curiousity. And her fear.

Doyle grinned at her. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You were at his apartment? How... when?"

"Back in the days when you were alive. Everything's useful. It was rather interesting, by the way. Did you know that your friend Spencer actually owns a bottle of Eau de Cologne? I didn't think he was the type for that but I was prooved wrong. And while Aaron Hotchner seems to be reading classics his son owns a couple of child detective books. Like father like son, huh? And Derek Morgan... his dog seems to like me. A lovable one, really. I bet he would like to hang out with this cat of yours too, even though I doubt that your friend Penelope would like to have a rather big dog skylark through her apartment. Did you know she took your cat?"

"It's a tomcat."

"Yeah, whatever. It seems to has it's own scratcher ever since it started to abuse the wallpapers."

All she felt was a deep, harrowing nausea. Her stomach felt like it was about to turn every moment and desperation began to spread out through her mind until it stung even in the back of beyond in her brain. The realization that she would betray them again if she put them in this kind of danger hit her right before the truth did - that the danger they had been in was over now. They hadn't known about the connection between her and Doyle back then but they did now and they knew he was back.

They wouldn't let him hurt one of them now.

"You won't go after them."

"I know. They can't tell me anything. If they could I would know by now."

"Then why were you there?"

He smiled again, deathly scornful this time. "For you, Emily. As I said - this happened some time ago. I only want you to know that I might have been closer to them than you knew and that I will find my son, by all means. You won't escape me. Make a choice, _now_!"

She took a deep breath. "No."

"Alright. If this is what you want..."

He made a wide step towards her and stabbed the syringe with the yellow substance, presumably the cleaning agent, in her arm. Emily struggeled to break free from her bonds. The chair fell back and once again the ground hit her head with no mercy. Doyle hadn't had enough time to pull down the plunger yet and the needle was teared out of her arm. She sighted inwardly but silent tears flooded her eyes and streamed down her cheeks. It didn't matter at all. All she had done was to successfully bring herself in the only position in which she was even more vulnerable than before.

Doyle came closer and kneeled down next to her.

"Don't do this."

"You are willing to go through everything possible for your _family_, you told me?" His voice was calm, almost gentle as he tied an elastic strap tightly around her upper arm and let his finger wander over the crook of her arm until it found one of her venes. He pattet it lightly, waiting for it to gain thikness. "Why, I am willing to _do_ everything to get back what you took from me."

"No..."

Emily held back a sob as she felt the long, thin needle break through her skin. The particular intrusion didn't hurt her any worse than any other blood taking or TB test did, cold, almost smooth, but she didn't dare to look at Doyle's hands, didn't want to know whether he had already injected the torturous substance or not or which of the two it was. Before she actually took note of it there was the second needle entering her bloodstream. All smoothness was gone. The pull onto the plunger was rather harsh.

No more than a few seconds, a couple of blinks, tremulous heartbeats and biding breaths could have passed until she was inwardly set on fire, too hazy to opress her screams and yet to conscious to fade down her agony.

Gastric acid spout off her mouth. She chocked on it and turned her head to the side in order to breath again, even though the pain from the inside of _everywhere_ seemed to be more breathtaking. The blood in her veins was literally boiling, browsing through her body like liquified ordeal.

"I said I'd take you with me, Emily... Welcome to hell."

Emily fought for air. It's only purpose was that she could scream out louder than before.

* * *

><p><strong>another AN:** (might contain a spoiler)

Concerning the beginning: I was having long debates with myself whether I should include Rossi's son in this or not. I would have fit in there very well and given me some opportunities to involve more emotions and everything but I eventually decided to leave him out.

But wasn't this an awesome scene? I was totally stunned. And I watched that whole episode about three times in a row. It was really cool.


	27. Chapter 27

**A/N:**

Hello ther! Yeah, got the allusion? ;)

Thank you so, so, so super-very-much elodie84, ksbballgirl1, Withoutatracelover996, mcleagan, sarahb2007 and Khaida21**!** I was stunned by the response I got on the last chapter and all of your wrote such nice things! It's awesome to see evidence of both - new people reading this story and "old" ones keeping to read this, even though I'm a lousy updater who didn't complete as much as a single story so far, except those who were supposed to only cinsist of one chapter. Thanks guys! You're wonderful!

So... yeah, this update comes quicker than my updates usually do but it's been written kind of quick, too. It also includes the behated scene mentioned in the previous chapter but I think I found a nice cliffhanger. And I don't know how many chapers are going to follow this one... probably five to ten. Five if I hurry, ten if I stall. So more likely ten. ^^

I am a pessimist and therefor I need to say: I don't own Criminal Minds and probably never will. But if I happen to buy it someday I'll let you know.

Hope you like it & tell me what you think!

* * *

><p>"Dave!" He almost yelled, barely keeping controle of his voice as he was running down the floor, being chased by an angry nurse whom he hadn't given his ID but only showed his badge, leaving her more than worried and taken by surprise. Rossi had left the room after a couple of minutes, feeling too guilty to be with JJ and Henry much longer. He had seen what had been done to them or the <em>best of<em> of their torture. And yet there hadn't been anything for him to do to save them than _supporting_ Emily o her way to her own execution.

As he and Will shook hands briefly he felt much better. At least a family would be reunited and that had to, overall, count for something, right?

"Oh my gosh Dave, I came as soon as I heared it but... 'm so glad y'all here watchin'em..." His words came thick and fast and his accent seemed to be heavier than ever. Ever since he had moved to Virginia Will had tried to speak as clear as possible to avoid some of the constant, but friendly, mockery from his colleagues and friends. As disaster stroke he didn't give a shit about it though. A worried father would find understanding, no matter which language he used. And if not he would make sure he was understood, by all thinkable and unthinkable means.

"Calm down, Will, please", Rossi said in a low voice, attempting to soothe the Cajun, knowing too well how awful the other man felt, "I guess the worst is over now. I talked to Henry, he seems to be fine and I know JJ, she'll be alright too."

"Yes, I ko-... hope so. Its just... I should've come earlier. No fuckin' seminar should make me unavailable for my family when they need me and then there was traffic and..." He sighted deeply, looking onto the ground in desperation. He hurt. Even _knowing_ that he had felt fine while his family had been agonized seemed to cause him subsequent pain. Dammit, he had actually had _fun_ training his skills in company of a bunch of cops from all over the country. He had _enjoyed_ this day... and even spent the night in bars and clubs, having one of the best men-time in awhile. "I should've been there for 'em."

"We all feel that way. I blame myself as much."

"You got them back; there's no reason to feel guilty."

Rossi gave him a suprized look. "You don't know?"

"Know... know what? I guess not then."

"How they were saved."

"Look, I was informed briefly or actually... I had like a million voicemails and stuff and when Hotch called me I was told my kid and wife were both alive and no longer in a life-threatening condition. Awful thing to hear, sure, especially when you're wondering what had happened and... geez, I thought they were in a car crash or something. _Then_ I was told they had been kidnapped and _then_ I hang up to head here asap. Was caught speeding twice, almost rushed down an icy bridge - I don't know _anything_ but you guys have been keeping up great work so I assumed... well..."

"We didn't catch the man who did this yet." Rossi shook his head, trying to shirk from the father's as he felt that Will was trying to make eye contact. "But we'll move heaven and hell to get him, Will, I promise you that." He tried not to think of how they had been making this promise to themselves over and over again after Doyle had killed... no, _stolen_ Emily from them.

"But you know who he is?"

"Yes." Rossi nodded, again feeling the familiar sting of guilt. "It's Ian Doyle."

"_Doyle_?", Will gasped, "but I- I thought you were done with him ever since..."

"We thought so, too... until today. I mean, yesterday, actually... JJ and Henry live because Emily willingly traded them for herself."

"I'm afraid I don't understand. You lost me, Dave."

"Yes. Sorry. The heart of the matter is that Emily didn't die or... I don't know. She was alive until today, hiding in France for the last weeks. JJ was the only one of us who knew and when Emily returned that got Doyle back on the plan, too and... triggered that whole mess we're facing now."

Will, to Rossi's surprise, smiled to himself, seeming to be almost proud. "That's my Jennifer."

"What do you mean?"

"Protecting a friend, no matter what? Helping her flee?" He smiled again wider this time. "That's _so_ the woman I married."

"You have a brave kid, too."

"Couldn't be more proud of my family." A warm feeling started to grow in his chest. They could be fine. It was possible. It just had to be.

"You... you should really go to them now. They've been asking for you and", he looked through the window at Garcia who was eagerly trying to pull Morgan, Henry and JJ in a mass hug, being _very_ careful when touching JJ and henry but almost ripping Morgan's head off at the same time, "they might need a break from, ehm... the _exhausting_ kind of love."

"Yeah, I'll go see them in a second." He paused for a moment, seemingly unsure of himself. "What about Emily, Dave? You'll get her back or was it that for her now? I mean, did she really... do you know whether she's already..." He couldn't bring himself to finish either of the sentences. Emily too had been his friend, after all. He hadn't went on not missing her either.

"She gave herself up for them. You're a cop and you know how things are with are with people like Doyle. He's furious and he has no scruples, he was _that_ close to killing her last time. We can't allow ourselves to give up on her before seeing her dead body, just for the sake of hope. If we're being honest with ourselves instead..." He tried to choke back the reproaches he brought upon himself for giving up now. "...I don't know whether we're going to be fast enough."

"Before you're mad at JJ for hiding her and hurting you... you must know it's been hard on here, too. Losing a friend like that. I didn't know Em was alive but JJ was beating herself up for _something_ all day long. I saw it but I thought it being due to her death was just as reasonable so... regarding these news I think you should know that. It hasn't been easy for her and I bet living in exile has been horrible for Emily." Will shrugged and slowly, almost hesitatingly, approached the door, suddenly scared of the reunion that arouse from destruction. "Just sayin'..."

"I know... but we'll keep it in mind." _In exile_. He cursed himself for understanding truth and fit of the expression. And he had been hurt about being lied to? A cold wind must have been blowing through the hallway because he shivered from the cold that couldn't come from his inside; just couldn't. Never had he had the right to be hurt. "Don't worry about this now, Will. Just be happy that your wife and son are alive. This might not sound alright but... just be happy."

The cop nodded. "I am. Good luck getting her back."

"Thanks. We'll need it."

* * *

><p>The SUV, bounded by a cloud of awhirled snow, slithered around another corner. The engine howled angrily as Hotch stepped on the gas even harder than befor, only to brake sharply about ten seconds later. The car lurnched to stand still and all three occupants seemed to utter a sight at the same time.<p>

„At least we survived this part", Ashley said, only for the purpose of breaking the silence, and then, more reasonable as she realized how both men gave her a rather disapproving look, added for consideration: „We should call an ambulance. They can't go as fast as us and they are quiete flashy but... we better call it in advance than later and hopeing that we'll need it counts as optimism in this case, right?" She didn't wait for the others to answer but took her phone. „I'll text Garcia about it. Just in case."

„You're sure this is it?", Hotch asked, looking at Reid questioning, „it doesn't seem to be labled, even though the others are."

The younger man nodded. „Without a doubt, that's the one." He swallowed hard. „It's huge but... there probably aren't many storeys to check. That would be _very_ unusual, wouldn't it?"

Both Hotch and Ashley didn't speak out how unusual the recent events had been but Reid thought of this by himself and didn't expect any kind of an answer though. He tried to remain hopeful, but Ashley had been right... if they would eventually need an ambulance they could consider themselves lucky. A mortuary car was the only possible alternative.

The building in front of which they were standing was grey, high and overall one of the bigger ones. It was indeed gone to rack, the few windows it had were all broken and muddy darkness seemed to expell from it. The atmosphere fit their situation ironically well and if it hadn't been such a miserable and tragic one they might even have noticed its slight comic.

„Let's go", Hotch eventually announced and got out of the car, followed by Ashley and Reid. They pulled their guns, ready to shoot in an instance, and slowly made their way around the building until they reached a narrow door. Hotch made a step towards it and gently pushed it open, always ready to kill whomever might be positioned there to kill every intruder. There wasn't anybody.

They entered a large storage hall which was completely empty. Only a shaky-looking scafold covered the opposite wall; maybe the residue of the time when trying to refurbish the building had been an option.

Reid nodded to the right behind corner of the hall. „I think there's the basement. We should start looking for her down there."

Hotch nodded and the three Agents springted through the hall and through saied door. They went down the stairs carefully for some of them were covered by a thin layer of black ice and found themselfes facing a long hallway which had doors at both sides. Hotch pushed open the first door to his right and looked into the room, at first not sure whether he saw anything or not. Their eyes still needed adjustment and, being unattentive due to the hurry they were in, they hadn't taken any flashlights with them.

„Empty", he mumbled after a couple of seconds, simultanously turning around to the next door, the room behind which was empty as well.

„We could split up, that'd be faster", Reid offered, already moving to a door further down the hallway.

„Too dangerous. We'll stay together."

"But Reid has a god point, we'll lose much time-", Ashley interjected, but Hotch cut her off angrily.

"This is not your decision to make! I can't risk losing you or Reid down here, even though saving Emily means a lot to us."

Ashley stood in front of him for a moment, her mouth slightly opened, unsure whether to comply with his order or not. Eventually she nodded. "You're right."

Hotch didn't respond but turned around to the next door. "Now lets try this one. Reid-" He paused, looking down the hallway. "Reid? We're not splitting up so you-"

"Hotch, Ashley!", Reid interrupted his boss, running into the room of which he had opened the door, forgetting about cordoning it off completely. He hadn't been listening to their conversation either, even thouhg he had assumed that Hotch would knock back his idea of splitting anyways, "somebody's in here!"

The pertaining room was even darker than the hallway but the outlines of the person lying on the ground were clearly those of a woman. The two other agents approached the door quickly. They halted as they saw Reid kneeling down in the back of it, close to the wall.

"Is she alright?"

His heartbeat accelerated as he gently raised his hand and grabbed her wrist, searching for a pulse. He shivered as reality hit him with the touch of icecold skin.

"We came too late, I can't feel anything-" His voice broke and he swallowed hard, sowly shaking his head as tears streamed down his face. "She's... she's dead."

* * *

><p>As the pain slowly began to lessen Emily held enough self-control to not move too much, so that Doyle would't just inject her the next substance. Her entire body still burned except the parts of it that slowly became numb. She hoped that this was attributed to the cold instead to the blood poisoning, which seemed to be a lot more likely. She opened her eyes a little and caught glimpse at the crook of her arm. Long red strains had spread all over the inner part of her forearm, roughly tracing her veins. A trickle of blood ran down her wrists where the cable binders had but deep enough into the flesh.<p>

Something was moving around her but even though Emily couldn't see anything, she knew it could only be Doyle though. She relaxed in her position as much as possible, pretending to be unconscious, hoping that he would buy it. Her breath went forcefully calm while she tried to endure the fire within in composedness. She couldn't hel wondering what was she waiting for though. Why, for heaven's sake, did she try to procrastinate the end of pain like this? Why had she tried to escape the pain of the mind in Paris but attempted to avoid the end of suffering now, as life had become uncountable times as miserable?

_Why not... embrace the end?_

The thought took control over her suddenly and in a scary, convincing veracity.

_Die. All will be okay. Embrace the end._

And, out of nothing, she felt another needle. Doyle grinned at her as she opened her eyes wide in shock and surprise.

"You're a terrible liar."

"I'm great at keeping though."

"I've given you a slight overdose." He said this with a serious tone and his face let slip that his decision didn't leave him unconcerned. "You have about fifteen minutes left then it'll probably be over once and for all. I do have enough adrenaline available to wake about a thousand golden-shot-deads up. But I have truthfully never done this before and you couldn't find a thing which I am least interested in than _saving_ your life."

She swallowed hard, trying to strive against the rather winsom thought of leaving. "Alright. I'll see ya when I'll see ya then, Ian."

"This is your last and your best chance. You've got nothing to lose. Now talk to me, Emily. Nobody is going to blame you. I won't hurt my son, I will do what is right and what is good. End your agony. Talk to me. Tell me where he is."

"No."

"Tell me where he is!" His face came closer to hers. "Where, Emily, _where?_" He asked this question in a tone of sincere inquisitiveness that made her wonder for a moment whether his love for Deklan went deeper than she had assumed, whether he wouldn't mess the kid up but decide to do what was best for him... Emily pushed back her doubts quickly, angry with herself that she dared to even _consider_ telling him. Doyle had hurt somebody else's son to get Deklan. These weren't a good man's actions and much less were they those of a father. How could she have been bling to this for as long as a second? How could she betray JJ and Henry like this?

"No."

She closed her eyes and put her head back. A quater of an hour?

_Embrace the end._

Should that be it? Should these happen to be her last minutes, seconds, heartbeats? It hadn't been that bad, she thought. There had been nice moments, she had saved people and she died saving some of them. It had been a hard but not that a bad life. She had made the world a better place in so many ways. If she left for good this would make the world a saver place, right? If she let go now, maybe, it would all be good.

She sighted deeply, tremblinly taking her first small steps into the dark.

_Embrace death._

* * *

><p><em><em>**A/N:**

Huh, huh? Now how was that? :D

This is a short edit, since I totally forgot to say: **Review!** Please, this all went so great last chapter...


	28. Chapter 28

**A/N:**

Hello everybody.

First of all I need to apologize for the long delay. I actually wanted to have an update titled with the words "Happy New Year" but I guess I'm a little late for that. I was absolutely stuck and had not a single idea what to write. Or actually - I knew _what_ I wanted to write but whenever I tried to all I got was a massive amount of crap and I'm still not absolutely sure about this chapter...

Thanks a lot to mcleagan, sarahb2007, Riza Prentiss and Jen for your revies to the last chapter, though!

I hope you'll like that one, too... and that anyone still ready this since I neglected this story for almost three months. I promise to get the next update to you sooner! I'm kinda sorta almost in my whole graduation thing but writing has become somewhat easier durin the last week. Increase of inspiration, decrease of failure... so if anyone could give me a second (or for I haven't been that quick a write ever a 28th chance) I'd be very, very glad!

Before ending my author's note I have to say that I think it's really sad to see Paget brewster leaving again, even though it's quiete understandable if one looks at how CBS has treated her. I hope she'll be replaced by some awesome character (such as Seaver - even though I seem to be one of the, at best, handful of people liking her, like: a lot) and that Paget Brewster will be in some awesome show I can start to love and become a fanatic fan of. :D

**Please, please, please** **leave a review!**

Hope you'll like it,

~ AJ

* * *

><p>In the moment of our birth, is the moment of our death already set?<p>

Do we have a destiny or an actual choice?

Will the boy that peacefully plays with his box of new matchbox cars and takes a nap in the arms of his grandmother inevitably become the broken tramp who sleeps underneath a bridge, the lone child that is beaten within an inch of his life by his own father or the tormented body who did not survive the moments of torture that stipulated the end of his life and whos murderer was over the hills and far away by the time his body was found; gotten off scot-free?

Her father had died years ago and his funeral had turned out to be one of the worst she had ever attended. This, seeming naturally to most, might not even have been an unusual thing for it was her own father, a person in flesh and blood as close to her as only one other person, which she had brought to his grave but in hindsight it were the guests that had filled this day with the depression and sadness that she couldn't abandon from her memory. Her mother had been pleased to get to meet a big cheese from TV and a couple of Senators which she hadn't had contact to in a while and the funeral banquet had allowed her to renew most of her connections and to overtake some of her deceased husband's as well.

Emily had been too young to be interested in anything like politics but old enough to be disgusted by it. Not having had her father around much had meant that her life could go on pretty much the way it did before and from the secret tears she had seen her mother cry the night before she could tell that the loss hadn't left the ambassador unaffected, but what she had done that day... it just hadn't seemed right.

How many would show up at her funeral? The thought that she should have thought of this earlier crossed her mind. Thinking about it now, Emily really didn't want many people to be there but some would probably not show up only weeks after attending her first funeral anyways. What would they be told? The whole, brutal truth or some heroic tale that held least of the facts? How many would feel defrauded, how many hurt; who would be proud, touched, at odds with oneself or just... sad?

She shivered, wondering where all the cold came from. Alcohol, she knew, caused people to easily become hypothermic because it widened the blood vessels. And wasn't Dilaudid supposed to make her sleep or leastways numb? Her very first cat had been put to sleep due to the unjustifiable pain that continuing to live with a brain tumor would have meant. The already gaunt animal had looked calm, peaceful, maybe even freed.

Looking at it now, Emily was both in pain and a witness to the quickening retreat of her mental presence. What she did not feel was the relief or the calm but growing tempestuousness. A narrow line of coldness on her cheek indicated that she was losing control and crying at least a couple of tears.

It was cold and dark; again.

She couldn't let go but couldn't go anywhere else, was stuck with no way out; again.

A thud sound next to her indicated that something had fallen onto the ground and, just for a moment, Emily seriously considered to not care at all, to not try to open her eyes but let go of the world just as planned. As she heared the first panted gasp these intentions were, naturally, tossed overboard within seconds. The cold surrounding air touched her open eyes with comforting gentleness and stopped the tears.

Ian Doyle was lying next to her, white foam at his mouth, staring at her with glassy eyes. She took a deep breath and gathered her strength to give the dying man a very last, sneering grin. "Pathetic."

* * *

><p>Someone could have given him a hard kick in the guts or just a plain nutshot, it would have been a more gentle experience than looking at the woman in front of them. Hotch had pulled out his Blackberry, using the faint screenlight to take a closer look on the dead body, he refused to think or say <em>Prentiss<em> to, in front of him. The piercing smell of urine was in the air and deeply intruding his lungs. The death he stared at held Hotch's gaze without mercy.

The parts of her face that weren't covered with caked blood and vomit were badly bruised and hardly recognizable. Thick strands of long, black hair fell around her face or were sticking to it as they had become one with the engrossing mixture of bodily fluids. If her clothes hadn't been ripped open he hadn't even been able to doubtlessly assign her a gender.

"She's so cold", Reid whispered, "so cold..."

Then finally his mind began to resume work. "She's cold", he repeated and even though he knew that Doyle had tortured the dead woman in front of them to death he couldn't supress to feel relieved, even smile a little. "A body's decrease in temperature is proportional to the difference of temperature and ambient temperature and proportional to the time!"

"Meaning... what?", Ashley asked cautiously, being careful to raise hope before truly understanding what he was telling her, "is it possible that isn't Emily?"

"There is _no logical way_ that this is her", Reid straightened out, "even if... even if Doyle had killed her right away she wasn't gone long enough to be that cold and look at the amount of injuries - this woman has been held and tortured for more than just a couple of hours; these ecchymoses are dark and large and considering that this is caused by blood internally seeping into the surrounding tissue the woman has been alive for a relevant amount of time before she passed. Also, bear in mind those-"

Hotch interrupted the genius' explanation harshly. He sure was glad that they hadn't found Emily's body... yet. A woman who looked a lot like their friend had died a gruesome death and he had no desire to find himself looking at another body that could barely be identified and to _know_ that this was Emily. "We really need to get going. Doyle is probably doing this to Emily right now."

"Are we following any pattern?"

"No, I'd say we stick to out previous tactic -only that we're _really_ gonna do it this time- and search the rooms one by one." He gave Reid a quizzical look. "Except if you impromptu know a way to make it faster."

The other man only shook his head. "You were pretty clear about not splitting up."

"I just don't want any of us to die down here."

They went through the hallway and Hotch opened another door just to step into a dark, empty room, much like the previous ones. He turned around without thinking about much and, just for a moment, he was nothing but afraid to find Emily - dead or alive. If she was dead he would go through losing her again... and he had lost too many close ones. Could he, could the whole team bear her death once again? Could they burry her, mourn her, go on - until they'd lose another one, until it would start all over again?

And if she was alive... what would he do? She had risen from her grave. It wasn't like anything he had ever had to handle.

Next door.

Incertitude.

Next door.

Darkness.

One by one, just hoping that they would find more of her than her corpse, battered and bruised and slowly cooling down, or one of these shadowy humans whom humanity had been taken from.

Eventually they hadn't been been searching long but had made it almost all the way down the hallway until they had found the romm, or rather _cell_, which they had been looking for. It was cold, but luckily not as cold as the others since it had been used by people. A man way lying in the left behind corner but judging by the gory state of his skull there was no way he was alive.

They stood still for a moment, staring at Emily who was, tied to a chair, lying on the ground in front of them... and Doyle, lying right next to her. The scene was stranger than what they had been expecting, there was no bullet to be fired, no shot to be taken. All of the sudden they could consider themselves lucky if just one present person was actually alive.

Ashley was the first one to move again, but it was the man whom she approached.

"It's Doyle", she exclaimed and softly put her index and middle finger against his throat to feel his pulse, "and he's alive."

Reid shivered as he observed how she routinly began to check his body, piling up several firearms and a knife next to her, but, to bew safe, way out of Doyle's reach. Simultaneously Hotch had kneeled down next to Emily, givin them the answer they were much more eagerly waiting for.

"She's alive!" They were exhaling at almost the exact same moment and Reid moved to join his boss as this began to losed the cable ties she had been restrained with. The touch to her skin was concerningly icy and now that he was closer to her Reir realized that _she's alive_ wasn't the whole truth. _Half alive_ would not have been it either. Her breath seemed to be even less than faint, her skin almost as pale as that of a dead person.

He pointed at her armpits. "He gave her something."

He glanced in Doyle's direction. Ashley has left him lying there; they had more important things to do than care about his life. She was looking at the tray with syringes, hoping to find a labled container to identify what Emily had been given. There wer none.

"Has he been given an overdose, too?", she asked confusedly, nodding towards to white foam in front of Doyle's mouth.

"The syringe is still in his arm... I guess he injected it by himself."

"So first he drugged Emily and then himself?" She didn't quiete see any logic behind it. "Why would he do that?"

"He probably didn't think Emily was still alive or expected her to be dead soon. We all know she hasn't told him anything about Deklan so what in he left with? A dead FBI Agend, the FBI, us who'd hunt him to hell and back... and no son."

She swallowed. "He was desperate."

Reid huffed ironically. "If terrorism has ever lead people to _happiness_ I haven't heared of it yet."

"As soon as the EMTs get here they'll do whatever they can", Hotch said and swallowed hard, facing the bitter truth, "for the both of them. They won't put Emily first and if we're really out of luck... they'll probably get to save them both."

"Or worse", Reid added, barely mouthing the words. His voice seemed to echo is the quiete room though. It didn't take an IQ as high as his to make out the most obvious option there was. He looked at Hotch and Ashley and lowered his eyes, knowing they were thinking the same. The man to his feet gasped quietly and Reid could not inhibit himself from blushing. That he even took this in _consideration_, that he dared sparing seriously more than a single, faint thought on this should embarrass everyone calling himself a man... and yet, who was he to deny the temptation?

"For a friend?", he slowly began, refusing to look into te eyes of neither Ashley nor Hotch. Opening his mouth to continue he realized he couldn't. What was he to present, tell, ask them? And he didn't had to.

"She didn't tell us anything to protect us", Ashley shyly continued the thought, even though she hadn't been as close with Emily as the rest of the team, "She went _that_ far for us... twice. We'd go just as far for her, wouldn't we?"

"_Could_ we", Reid interjected, "we're... we're with the FBI, goddammit, it wouldn't be just."

"Are you here because your job coincidentally lead you here or because you've known her for years? Would you rather be with the FBI than with her?"

Two pairs of eyes were lying on Hotch as they quietly decided that he was to have the final word on this. He opened his mouth, then closed it again to have another look at Doyle.

"I don't know."

The piercing sound of a blaring siren brought them back to reality.

"That's the EMTs. I'll tell them we found two people in a critical state and direct them here", Reid mumbled, " do what you think is right." Saying this, he turned around and sprinted down the hallway.


	29. Chapter 29

**A/N:**

****And here I am!

Yeeeeah, I actually said I'd be updating more quickly... but I, obviously, didn't. In my defence I might mention that I took all of my finals, like for graduation, and it turned out that during the last two years we actually did a lot more in school than I thought. xD So there was quiete some preparation involved and fanfiction got pushed in the background.

**Thanks** to Riza Prentiss, elodie84, sarahb2007, MeGkAtHeRiNe, scadki, ZiggyStardustt and lizzabet for your most recent reviews! They are very apprechiated and I love, love, love getting them!

Also: There are two more chapters to come, one of which will be short while the last one will be even shorter. This one is very cheezy and the others... well, wrap-up. They are almost finished so I don't want to put my head above the parapet - but I'm planning on uploading the next one in a week and the next but one not too long after that.

Please **leave a review,** comment or whatever... it'd be awesome, as always. If I've still got some readers, obviously.

I hope you'll like (or at least read) it,

AJ

* * *

><p>The deep relaxation of his face made it look peaceful and calm. His smoothened features were bedded in a thick pillow and his body's shape was softly outlined against the snow-white blanket which covered them. His bed ad been placed close to a window which revealed the view of a night of a full moon, a thousand stars and a universe of deep shades of purple.<p>

"Seeing him like this", Garcia whispered, gently clasping the forearm of Reid, who stood next to her and had both hands buried in his trouser pockets, "...it's like standing next to a sleeping dragon."

"I know", Reid answered, for once understanding exactly the way she felt, "it's scary."

"It's messing everything up", he angrily added after a short moment of silence, "He deserved to be charged with what he did and then convicted but not this."

"He might not wake up at all." What was meant to sound optimistic came out in bitterness. "He might stay in some vegetative state for the rest of his life without even having anyone who gives a shit."

"But if he ever opens his eyes again he's off the hook." He shook is head. Garcia had hit the nail right on the head. It w_as_ like watching a monster resting peacefully. "He doesn't deserve this. If he does wake up and _then_ sais he has changed it's his free pass. Leathal injection will be off the table anyways and if he's lucky he'll get to spend his sentence in a mental institution, which will make it all the easier to escape again. As long as this man _breathes_ it's not over. I wish we-"

He choked off.

"I'm glad you didn't", Garcia whispered and tightened her grip around his arm, "it wouldn't have brought you any good. None of you."

"I was the first one to be against it and left it to the others" Reid silenced, nervously biting his upper lip while staring at the half-dead but still too living man in front of him as if in trance, "but... he hurt us. And not only us; the woman he killed, the one we found that looked so much like Emily, could still not be identified. He made her vanish and we might never know if anybody out there misses her."

"Killing Doyle would not have been a solution. It's not just."

He let out a short laughter. "Funny thing, I said that too. Thinking about it now we would have owned her eliminating him, wouldn't we?"

* * *

><p>The scene she woke up to was one of peace and quiete; which was the first thing making her doubt that she was indeed waking up, that she was <em>alive<em>.

"Hey Derek", she said quietly... too quietly, as she realized when Morgan didn't look up. Forming the words had felt weird, almost unfamiliar and her voice was sore, even though she couldn't remember having much of an exactly long conversation with Doyle. When she coughed to clear her throat the Agent raised his head. His face brightened up when he looked at her.

"Hey there, you're back with us", he said with a smile and got up to approach the bed, "you've let us wait."

She blinked confused, not seeing quite sharp yet."What... where am I?"

"Bathesda Naval", Morgan answered and smiled, "I bet you didn't expected to see _that_ place again."

"I, no... I-", Emily stuttered. Her vision became a little blurry as the room seemed to be madly spinning around her. She let her head rest back on the pillow and closed her eyes for a moment, hoping for it to stop. "I didn't. Guess they saved me twice, didn't they?"

"It was a close call." He narrowed his eyes and Emily witnessed how his facial features hardened. "If you had died here once again..."

"What happened?"

"The short version is that we followed you and Hotch, Reid and Seaver found you, Doyle and that dead guy, Cullin-"

"I killed him." she shivered, wondering who had decided about the medical procedures and consequently, how much everyone else knew. "I had no choice."

"Yeah, we... we figured that out. You were taken by international criminals; nobody doubts that it was self-defense."

"Oh... okay."

"You were heavily injured. A piece of a fractured rip had punctuated your lung, you had a severe sepsis, vessel damage and kidney damage. They weren't sure whether your kidney would recover... geez, everything was ready for a transplantation and... we all know what's going on with the black market for organs. The chances aren't that good and for some time you seemed to be rapidly running out of time-" He choked off and swallowed hard, gulping back whatever grief had been building up within him. "I, all of us, really thought we'd lose you. And you were drugged but even though Dilaudid is known to be highly addictive... you're clean for two weeks now so I've been told that they don't think you'll have such a hard time as... well, everything else was still much but compared to the_ really_ bad stuff rather minor."

She blankly stared at him, trying to take in what she had just been told. It was too much to understand all at once. "What do you mean I'm clean for... two weeks?"

"You were in an artificial coma. It was considered your best option."

"Who made these decisions?"

Morgan smiled, but seemed to be somewhat content for the first time. "Now _that's_ the good part to tell - it was no less a figure than Elizabeth Prentiss."

"My... my mother made these decisions?"

"Ehm, yes. We're not sure how she found out about you and, frankly, we hadn't really thought of her at all. But she showed up and when we found that since you were officially dead and gone you hadn't made any notes about an emergency contact she had a hell of a fight with the hospital's consultant and..." he shrugged and gave her an askew grin, "there she was."

"Are you sure? My... mother?" Her heart seemed to skip a beat at the thought of it. Still she wasn't able to understand much of what Morgan was telling her but the major points -her mother, taking a stand for her- stayed with her. "She's here?"

"No, not any longer. She left just a couple of hours ago."

"But I am... I was... why?"

"The doctors asked her to get tested since she is your closest living relative and, well... your mother. Just in case they ran a test if one of her kidneys could be used as a transplant and when they were positive she's didn't hesitate even a moment to give it to you. But when they decided that this wouldn't be necessary and to wake you up again", he shook his head, still feeling like he didn't understand any of the female Prentiss so far, "she took off, just like that."

"Oh." It was all Emily could say. "O-okay."

"Sorry the two of you have so many difficulties."

"No, that's fine." She bit her lip for a bit, trying to not show her disappointment. "I'm not surprised to hear she left... I wouldn't have expected her to come in the first place."

"I knew she would."

"Oh yes? No offense Morgan, but I have known her a little longer than you."

"But you haven't been to your _funeral_ though. I have been there and she has been, too. It was... painful. Not just having lost you but seeing her grieve. "

"I saw her 'grieve' before. She's an actor and I can be like that just as well-"

"_No_, Emily. It was so different. If anyone had doubts back then her delight on seeing you live has proved him wrong. You weren't a witness for neither of those situations but saw them both. But she's just... your parents." He tried to encouragingly smile but couldn't tell whether it turned out alright. "I guess we're supposed to _not_ get along with'em as soon as we're grown older. Do you know any adults who're having a really good relationship with their parents at all?"

At the thought of families, memory stroke her harshly. "Oh my god, JJ and Henry!" Emily gasped for air and a monitor next to her bed began to beep ferociously. The shock of the sudden, ear-piercing noise seemed to only worsen her shock and she saw how Morgan, just for a moment, jumped as well.

"Hey, that's... just stay calm, okay? That... I don't know; does this work? Are you alright?"

"I am... yeah, yeah I guess so."

"Just take a deep breath, see how it works."

She did as he suggested, closed her eyes for a few seconds and thought of how she had _seen_ both JJ and henry alive. If they had died, Doyle would have used it for torture... hadn't he? The noise stopped in about the same moment at which the door opened and a young physician stormed through the door.

"I'm alright", Emily tried to assure even before he was able to say something, "sorry about that. I was just a little... troubled, that#s all."

"No problem; glad it's nothing serious." He really seemed to be glad and Emily wondered whether her sudden condition had scared him more than Morgan and her. He sent an angry glare in Morgan's direction. "Whatever the two of you were about to do - _don't_, please."

He left, not waiting for an answer. "So how are they?"

Morgan hesitated, unsure about what to tell her. He wanted to spare Emily as much as he could and not make her feel guilty for anything but didn't want to denigrate what JJ and Henry had been through either. "They stand their ground alright."

"Are you being honest with me?"

"Why, of course. They're battered, but they don't break easily."

"And... how?"

"They are recovering quickly, in both ways. Henry had a brain bleeding which was... urgent. You saved them just in time. Henry was released two days ago and JJ will be able to leave in a few days, too. They started psychological therapy, one or two members of the team are visiting everyday... and I'm not sure if Garcia has left the hospital during the last two weeks at all."

In many ways, this seemed to be a happy end. Not all was good, but on a good way.

Still...

_Will they ever forgive me?_ She didn't dare say it out loud. Her heartbeat went faster but didn't seem to gain alarming speed just yet. Morgan noticed it on the monitor and maybe he was able to guess what was bothering her but he didn't say anything, and Emily left it at that. Time would show. Maybe Henry was young enough to eventually forget of the betrayal , she hoped.

"Thanks."

"What for?"

She smiled; it was good to be awake and know the world could be somewhat okay, even if she was part of it. "Last time, I woke up dead and all by myself. It's good to not be alone."

"We won't let you be that lone warrior you were going for... you know that? No matter how hard you try."


	30. Chapter 30

**A/N:**

Apparently my updates get slower and slower. I know I said they would be quicker but I re-wrote this chapter a few times and I'm still just rambling for the most part of it... I don't know, I'm just trying to get this to a satisfying ending but I guess parts of the story got a little out of hand and... yeah, there's going to be one more chapter. Not everything will be resolved (I guess I forgot about a few details or just let logic aside), but at least some parts.

Thank you Rizza Prentiss, sarahb2007 and an anonymous Guest for leaving reviews on chapter 29!

By the way, I started another story. It's called **Us Fortunate** **Ones **and my first Criminal Minds AU attempt. Basically it's set in 1935 (during the great depression), the team is acting as a team but meets in different ways and solved a series of murders during which the killer disguises his crimes as suicides. One of the victims is Haley; and this is where it starts off. :) So, maybe check it out..?

I'm now as well on fictionpress, as BrightlyShining1 since the numberless version as already taken, but there's not really much on there.

So... here is the new chapter! Please **review **and maybe stick it out 'til the end? ;)

* * *

><p>The Saturday was a particularly dark and rainy one. Too cold to be happy, yet ironically appropriate for the delivery of bad news.<p>

If it hadn't been for this very last piece of the pile of shards her encounter with Ian Doyle had created, she had spent the day in her bed, altogether with a gallon of ice cream and a bunch of film noir DVDs. She wasn't part of the team again yet and neither was JJ; instead she had dropped by in the BAU as a visitor for a psychological evaluation, a whole set of mandatory therapy sessions... and, obviously, this.

On the brighter side it was only rain while it could have been hail just as well, making everybody who happened to be outside feel a little bit of the pain she had caused.

Or it could have been foggy. Thick wafts of mist would have created the mystical, saddening, somewhat heavy air which the occasion seemed to long for. It could even mean that there were silence and blindness and mystery out in the world and that it was very well possible that it would add to the knowledge of Doyle being in a coma but maybe still out there, able to come back at any given time...

Or maybe, if it had been a thunderstorm, a lightning could have struck a tree or a house or a person and the energy, the fire or the sight of pure destruction would have been visible to everybody and the metaphor for what Ian Doyle had done would have been all around.

But it wasn't hailing, foggy or stormy. Nothing but the bit of mostly debarred sun lit the sky, the only pain anybody in this street would feel came from one's inside and it were only tears that soaked the city.

She rang the doorbell with shaky hands and anxiously waited for one of the residents to open. A cold wind blew through the streets and messed with Emily's hair. She inwardly cursed at herself for not putting it in a ponytail this morning, but of all things this was what probably mattered the least.

A tall, thin woman opened the door. Her skin looked tan, her hair long and silk and as she smiled Emily was amazed by how beautiful just this expression could make an otherwise not-so-special looking face. She approached Emily and almost pulled her in a hug before she suddenly backed off again, not smiling any longer. Emily didn't move but stood still like a pillar of salt. She understood, had even expected something like this but not been able to come up with an appropriate reaction. So she had sattled for _nothing at all_, which now turned out to not be the best way to go.

"Are you Caithlyn Stuart?", she asked.

"Yes... Kate, please. I- I'm sorry, this was a little... okay, I suppose this was _really_ creepy, wasn't it?" Kate shrugged awkwardly and gave Emily a careful smile, not trying to hide her confusion. "You look a lot like a friend of mine."

Emily nodded. "I know."

"Uhm, okay... then do you mind if I asked who you are?"

"My name is Emily Prentiss", Emily introduced herself, "I am with the FBI. Please can I come in? I need to talk to you about your friend Frida Jenkins and her daughter."

" Of course... lets have a seat in the living room." Kate spoke as disenchanted as if she already knew that an FBI agent who looked terribly alike the friend she had something to say about couldn't possibly mean good news. Emily followed her into a big and clean, yet frugally furnished living room. "Do you want something to drink?"

"No, thanks."

"My brother bought the most delicious green tea in China a week ago."

"That sounds lovely but-"

"I could make you coffee! Or espresso, I have this wonderful caffettiera." She sighted and looked at Emily sadly. "So, I suppose you're gonna tell me that Frida is dead anyways."

"Yes." Emily tried to look somehwat nice and understanding, but instead she just stared at the coffee table in front of her. "Yes, that's what I'm here for. And I'm very sorry for your loss."

"And I get the feeling that it's not a coincidence that... well, that _you_ are the one to tell me."

"No, it's not. She died because somebody wanted to take me but his people took her instead. I was in France at that time, hiding. She came back from Italy... looking so much like me, meeting their expectations." Looking at her face, Emily decided to spare Kate any knowledge of the torture Frida had endured over days before her death. "When they noticed their mistake, they killed her."

"When-", Kate quickly wiped a couple of tears from her cheek, "sorry; when did this happen?"

"She arrived in Washington almost seven weeks ago."

"_Seven_ weeks? She never told me, she... oh my god, _seven_ weeks."

"It was... it was rather hard to identify her because her fingerprints didn't match with any of our data and nobody filed a missing person report."

"No", Kate whispered and shook her head, "she... I missed her; but she wasn't _missing_. Frida... worked abroad for a pharmacieutical company. She never knew when she would be back , that's why... she used to call Jane at least twice a week but she recently forgot it more often. We were... I was curious, but not surprized. She loves... loved Jane more than anything on this planet, but she turned away from us." She looked up. "It wasn't new to Jane to not hear much from her mother and it wasn't unlike Frida to just not call. Not at all, I mean. How... how did you find me then?"

"Our only clue was that she resembled me a lot. Then I figured if nobody had filed a missing person's report she must be either alone or for some other reason leading a life in which she won't be missed all that quickly. Concerning my own background it was safe to assume that she spent some time abroad or rather far away from here before coming to DC and I... I had some free time, requested all important data from the local airports and went through it. That's why it took us a while to identify her, even after her remains were found. When I found out she had a daughter who hadn't come with her but stayed in the country I wondered whom she was with now and this is how I found you."

"Sounds like a lot of work."

"It is worth it... and I had a lot of time, as I said."

Kate got up without saying a word and disappeared in the hallway. Emily heard water running, probably in the kitchen, and the woman returned, a glass of water in her hands. She sat down again, calm, yet battered.

"Jane is at a friends house", she quietly stated, "and I don't know what I am going to say to her when she comes back. It's hard enough to explain a girl why her mommy doesn't talk to her. So what do I tell her now?"

Emily gulped and thought of the autopsy report. Frida had been alive quite a while, almost a week. The thought of her own urge to give up on life could not be abandoned quickly enough. Then again she hadn't given up the first time. At all times had Deklan and the team - those whom she cared about the most- been her top priority which had enabled her to stay alive as a strong person. It had been this kind of force, no doubt, that had given Frida the strength to survive the torture she had been put through for as long as she had. If she had had no family, no loved one's, no reason for living she hadn't tried to hold on to life. Her last days were proof for her love. They meant something.

"You can tell her that her mother was, while she was held, suffering but she was strong and she fought to stay alive because she really wanted to return to her daughter. And you. She might not have shown you two enough affection when she was gone to work but when she knew how easily she could lose you forever... I know that it was _you_ whom she was fighting for, not merely her own life."

"Suffering..." She didn't ask further questions about her friend's anguish. She knew enough and while it was almost an inevitability that she would catch herself thinking about the gruesome things Frida might have gone through... she didn't want to know for sure. It might be worse than in her fantasy, since it would be _definitely_ real and it would haunt her and maybe, in a couple of years, Jane would ask her details and she wouldn't be able to say she didn't know any without making herself a liar... "Who did this to her?"

"Their leader is called Ian Doyle. He used to be a captain in the IRA until he was imprisoned, which I played a significant part in. Then he crusaded against me-"

"Doyle, you say? I... I think I heard of him. He... was in the news; he killed somebody, didn't he? I remember seeing his picture on TV and in a magazine when I was at the dentist, ehm... a couple of weeks, maybe months, ago... probably."

"He killed me", Emily said in a low voice and paused, even though Kate gave her a questioning look. Every time she said it, it felt so weird but whenever she considered to not say it she knew she was leaving out something. She had unsuccessfully tried to visit her own grave but it wasn't necessary, after all. She had been burried for a month in Paris and the Eiffel Tour was what she would go to if she should ever feel the desire to revisit her very own, strange death place...

"...at least that's what we pretended", Emil eventually continued, "I left the country to hide from him... and then, Frida came back and his accomplices thought she was I. And, well, it turned out I wasn't capable of staying away either."

"But you seem to be a person... I don't know how to ask it but you put him down, didn't you?"

Emily hesitated for a moment. "I killed one of his men whom, I suppose, was involved in abducting Frida as well. But... when Doyle thought I was dead he attempted to kill himself. I didn't give him what he wanted so... I'm not sure. There probably wasn't much left for him; not even revenge. He has been in a coma ever since. I'm _so_ sorry I'm not able to tell you that he got what he deserved. He might still die but I hope he's going to wake up without anybody noticing it. He'd be held captive in his own body, his own mind... nobody visits, notices, or cares. He's not gonna die the death he should die, so I hope he'll live in emptiness."


End file.
